Sheri-Ann Brooks practises during the Jamaica team training session at the Luzhniki warm-up stadium in Moscow. - File

MOSCOW, Russia:

Bad race. Worse result. Jamaica's Sheri-Ann Brooks could easily have been upset after her performance on August 12.

Sixth place in the semi-final of the 100 metres, in a sluggish 11.4 seconds, was not what the recently crowned Central America and Caribbean champion and former Commonwealth Games gold medallist had in mind for the IAAF World Championships in Athletics (WCA).

But even after that performance, which ended her medal hopes in the event, Brooks still counts herself lucky. Four years ago she was at possibly the lowest point in her life. A failed test for a banned substance at Jamaica's trials kept her out of WCA 2009, after she had made the team. She was eventually cleared, but the setback wiped out chunks of competition and earnings. It threatened to derail her career.

Her agent said Brooks lost her hair in clumps. Her coach said training suffered. The 2007 WCA relay silver medallist shut down. She pondered quitting.

silver linings

But Brooks bounced back. Now she sees others - big Jamaican names in track and field - in the same predicament, snared by doping charges. She's watched the cloud over the sport get darker. But at 30, Brooks is looking for silver linings, everywhere. Success has come in small doses and she doesn't want to waste a drop.

"(The semi-final race was) not what I wanted to see, but it is what it is," said Brooks, managing a smile as she explained her disappointing race.

"I just have to move on from here. Rough road in my career, but I'm here and I'm still running. As long as my body keeps going, I will be going."

She mentioned the "nagging in my hamstring," and the caution applied because of it, which ruled out any possibility of matching her personal best of 11.05. It just never came together on what was supposed to be Brooks's big night.

"The start wasn't good and the race wasn't good either," she said.

Lump that with a serious knee injury in 2010 and failure to make Jamaica's 2012 Olympic team and Brooks's problem chart gets deeper.

"A lot of things,"she said. "Injuries and ups and downs with the times ... and the list goes on."

Brooks can still salvage a WCA medal, most likely gold, as a member of Jamaica's 4x100 metres relay. Two 100 metres semi-finalists, herself and Schillonie Calvert - plus WCA 100 metres champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and finalist Kerron Stewart make up Jamaica's formidable team.

Whatever the result, however, Brooks is just "happy to make the World Championships team." In 2009 she did, then didn't.

When the WCA 2013 is done, she heads to the United States to start over.

"I just have to go back home and recover and then get back into training," Brooks said.