McKenzie

As an athlete enduring the frustration of injury and intermittent competition it must certainly comforting to be able to lean on one of the greatest sprinters of all time. It must be especially special when that great sprinter is able to identify with the issues the struggling athlete faces.

The last two years could not have been easy for former Calabar star athlete Ramone McKenzie, who after spending his high school years battling peers like St Jago High School's Nickel Ashmeade, who last season broke 20 seconds over the 200 metres twice; and Yohan Blake, also from St Jago, who became the youngest man ever to win a 100-metre world title in Daegu, South Korea, last season. Three weeks later, Blake became the second-fastest man in history over the 200 metres when he blitzed a quality field including World Championship 200-metre silver medallist Walter Dix, to stop the clock at an incredible 19.26 seconds. McKenzie, meanwhile, has had to overcome persistent back and hamstring injuries and found himself trailing Blake and Ashmeade primarily because he has had to be fighting off injury instead of competing against the world's best sprinters.

"It was frustrating at first but a couple of my teammates sat me down and they explained everything to me, saying that it's not going to happen overnight and some blossom before some and it's a process, so they were willing to help me through the process along with my coach and the other members that are around the camp, so after the first couple of months it wasn't that frustrating," he said.

Among those teammates McKenzie mentioned is Tyson Gay, the second-fastest man of all time over the 100 metres (9.69s) and who has had his fair share of frustration with injury, which has forced him out of competition ever since his days in high school. Gay also missed the Olympic Games in 2008 because of a groin injury and the World Championships in 2011 after he underwent surgery on an injured hip.

"He actually used his experience to bring his point across to me, because at one stage he was at the same point as me in his life where he left high school and started to run in college but had a series of back injuries which made him miss a lot of workouts, a lot of training sessions and even a season, and then he told me that he took time and worked on it and got better, and in the years to come he ended up being a world champion so I look into stuff like that and don't really focus on the negative, always on the positive," he said.

He is also learning other things from the 2007 triple World Champion, whose training habits have become legendary in the sport.

"After getting to know him - and he is a great person - I feel honoured and it pushes me to do well. I see the results and I see the work from start to finish, so I also use his work ethic as a guideline in order to go forward, and I am tending to adopt some of his traits and have been getting a lot of good results and good feedback from my coach," he said.

Coach Lance Baumann, too, has begun to take notice, and according to the young sprinter, his coach seems pleased. "So far, I'd say he's pleased with my progress so far this year," he said.

Jamaica's Ramone McKenzie (right) and Nickel Ashmeade pose with the national flag after the 200m final at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, in 2007. McKenzie won the gold medal in 20.67 seconds, while Ashmeade took bronze in 20.76. While Ashmeade has gone on to crack the 20-second barrier, McKenzie has been hampered by injuries. - File