Latest update April 24th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 07, 2010 Sports
– Sprinter on first time visit to motherland
By Edison Jefford
In an exclusive interview with Kaieteur Sport yesterday that ranged from his personal motivation and inspiration, representing Guyana on the big stage, the status of local track and field and some of his challenges, Adam Harris was candid on his first trip here.
The United States-born sprinter, whose mother is Guyanese and father American, sat down with this newspaper at Olympic House after turning in an impressive performance at Hampton Games in Trinidad and Tobago last weekend in the International races.
The 22-year-old former University of Michigan athlete ran 10.27 seconds to place second in the 100m, a race he won last year, and 20.78 placing third in the 200m. Harris represented Guyana at the 2008 Olympic Games and World Championships last year.
Had made the qualification standards for both events; he hold a Bachelors Degree in the General Studies and gave his first interview locally since making his national debut. Following is the full text of Adam Harris’s (AH) interview with Edison Jefford (EJ).
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Why did you choose to compete for Guyana?I love it, it is great running for your where you have roots. Most people running for America don’t really know where they came from, so it’s great for me to run for where I came from. I wasn’t really competitive until college and when I did think about going pro it was like between my family and coach, we all came together and decided that it was best for me to run for Guyana. I thought that was a great idea. What was the exposure like ever since you made that decision? It was great and good competition. It was great being around all the athletes from Guyana. We talk all the time. It is pretty much like family. We talk and stick together. I wish I had done better at the Olympics though; the thing that was killing me was that I went out there and did my best, but it still wasn’t as good as I thought it should have been. I still wish I could have done a whole lot better. Will you continue to represent Guyana?Yeah (laughs), I will, I love it here. The officials are great, the people are great and I feel like I am related to everyone here. My aunt was telling me about cousins and stuff that I have here and I don’t even know. I am like this is my family (laughs). I like it. You have not been here long, but I know you have been reading and researching local track and field. What is your perspective on athletics here? With this no track situation it is pretty hard for athletes to be practicing the way they are supposed to be practicing. If there was a synthetic track it would be helping the kids from when they are small, maybe getting much better training as opposed to running on grass. I believe that synthetic track in the missing link here that’s why we get better results overseas. I think that track that I am reading about that is supposed to be built here will help a whole lot.In this, what you called “no track situation”, what do you say to athletes?Just don’t give up! Keep working your hardest everyday, if something is bothering you just don’t keep it to yourself. Let somebody know you are in pain to not make it any worse. Just keep working as hard as you can and success will naturally come to you. Do you have a personal motto, what motivates you? When I set goals for my season I don’t say that I am going to go out there and run some ridiculous time, basically, I say I am going to work hard and I am going to go out there and run faster than I did before. How do you rate your improvement, if you believe there was any at all over the past, let’s say from the Olympic Games to now? I have no idea (laughs). I am just going to keep running… I know my times are going to keep dropping in the years to come. When I start getting old and my legs start going out, I will just go back to my education. That is the other important thing. It is important that athletes get a good education because once you can’t run you have to find something to do. For now, I am just going to run for as long as I can and hope for the best. I know your professional career must be a challenge, since you are only a few month into it, what are some of those challenges? I am not making that much money right now. It’s not only on me, it’s on my agent too but he is trying really hard and I am trying really hard to get my times down. I am competing in meets that has prize monies and appearance fees just that I can have some money to go with. But we are still working on the sponsorships. We are speaking to dealers right now. They are sending the clothes and everything else that I need but I am not yet in their financial budgets. They are going to let us know about that stuff. What about competing in the Golden and Diamond Leagues It’s not just about the money, but I also need a certain time to compete in those Leagues, so my concentration right now is just running faster times. Since you are talking about times, what time you think you need to make to reach the CAC 100m Final? I really don’t know because I have no idea on who will be running, but a lot of athletes took this year off because there are no major meets this year. If I run like around 10.21 seconds again I should be pretty close to that final but like I said, I hope to run faster than that because that is my personal best. My times right now are dropping so my chances at CAC should be pretty good. I just ran 10.27, which is like my third fastest time so that helped my confidence. I am still expected to go faster with a little bit of training over the next two weeks. My times will get down and at CAC I will do what I have to do, which is get to that final. What role will you play in motivating Team Guyana at CAC? We are all pretty good friends, we have this new guy coming in, Gordon Mackenzie, I know him for two-three years and we have been talking, Lee Prowell is also coming. We have been talking for two three years too. Because we have known each other so long and have been running against each other, I think we will push each other, its not only going to be a competition between us and the other people but there will also be a competition among us to like see who is the fastest one. You think there should have been another athlete in there to perhaps give us a 4x100m chance? That is what I was saying, we talk to Andrew Harry in New York and we thought that Jeremy Bascom was going to come, who is another sprinter based in New York. And Harry was saying that we were going to have a 4x100m (team). That’s what he told Gordon but I was just told that I am going to be in the 100m and 200m races. I know it would have been a pretty fast group and we could have done something good.
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