FROM THE PUBLISHER

FEATURES
ON THE COVER
The Preview family will
view the 2007 edition
with sadness. It ushered
in a new era in
the 24 year old publication
as it was the last
one publisher David
Hunt had a hand in as
he died suddenly later
in the year. His editorial
introduced readers
to Glenroy Morgan
and Oliver Harris as
the new team undertaking
the predictions,
which hold the interest
of Champs fans each
year.
Hunt had growing duties
in football coaching
and administration
to attend to and carefully
selected the pair
to care for the heart of
the Preview.
Morgan and Harris
began brilliantly.
Their predictions got
the winning totals
for Boys Champs and
Girls Champs almost
to the very digit and
correctly foretold the
top teams. Their work
continued the accurate
forecasting that David
had worked so hard to
establish.
2007By: Hubert
The cover once again featured high school
athletes after a three year departure that
had placed Usain Bolt, the 2004 Olympic
4x100 winning ladies team, Asafa Powell and
Trecia Smith as the feature images on the
face of the Preview. Camperdown’s Remaldo
Rose, St Jago’s Natasha Ruddock, Theon
O’Connor of Campion College and Schillonie
Calvert of Holmwood Technical looked ready
to run off the cover and into the National
Stadium, which hosted Champs from March
28 to 31.
That fantastic four were placed on a caption
that read ‘4 for The Future’.
Rose, the defending Class 1 100 and 200
metre champion, was upset in the short
event by the speedy Yohan Blake of St Jago
who took Tesfa Latty’s 2003 record of 10.24
seconds down to 10.21. With Rose not competing,
Blake took the 200m as well. Blake’s
200m produced the second fastest run in
Champs history – 20.62 seconds, as the
climax of a super session of sprinting around
the curve. The other boys to blaze were
the Calabar pair of Ramone McKenzie who
did the second half of a Class 2 400m/200m
double in 20.89 seconds, and Travis Drummond,
who brought the 22 second barrier
within reach for Class 3 boys with his super
clocking of 22.17 seconds.
Nevertheless, Hunt got his last Preview
cover subject selections mostly right. Ruddock
joined her St Jago predecessor Melaine
Walker by winning the Class 1 100 metre
hurdles to complete a collection of gold
medals that started in Class 4. O’Connor
made it 5 straight in the 800 metres and left
Champs as a three time Class 1 winner. The
Preview pegged Calvert as a repeat winner
of the Class 1 girls sprint double. She did
win the 100m again but lost the 200m to
Holmwood teammate Anatascia Leroy, as
their school won the Girls Champs crown for
the 5th time in a row.
Lawrence
Calvert was the only one of the four on
the cover to see the big times in the years
beyond Champs 2007. She ran the 4x100m
heats in the 2012 Olympics and gained a
silver medal for her efforts. In the following
season, she stormed the third leg to help Jamaica
to win the gold medals in the national
record time of 41.28 seconds at the 2013
World Championships.
Calvert isn’t the only 2007 winner to become
a senior standard bearer. Blake, his
St Jago colleague and Class 1 400m winner
Rikert Hylton, Calabar’s Andrew Riley, the
heptathlon champion, and Warren Weir
– St George’s, Class 1 shot put runner-up,
O’dayne Richards, Vere Tech triple jump
queen, Kimberly Williams and Holmwood’s
Class 4 high jump record breaker, Janieve
Russell, are just a few of the 2007 participants
whose names are called often these
days when Jamaica goes to battle against the
world in track and field athletics.
Blake is the most successful of them all. In
2011, he won the 100 metres at the World
Championships and placed second to Usain
Bolt at the Olympic Games in 2012. Bolt,
Blake and Weir shared in a famous moment
in Jamaica’s sporting history in those Games
as they finished 1-2-3 in the 200 metres.
Sadly injuries slowed Rose and Ruddock,
with the former nevertheless getting a
silver as anchor of the 2010 Commonwealth
Games men’s sprint relay team.
On a personal note, Hunt might have been a
bit sad, as McKenzie and Drummond helped
Calabar to end a six year winning streak by
his former high school Kingston College. An
even sadder moment was to come later in
2007.
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