Photo: Kenia Sinclair (Getty Images)
She is thirty four year old, but it’s not over for Jamaica’s most outstanding female athlete in 800 metre running Kenia Sinclair. In an interview recently with the gleaner she made it clear to track world and to her fans that she still have reserves in her tank.
“I will be back, 2015 for sure, I will be back for sure,” Sinclair said from her home in Gainesville, Florida, yesterday. “I am just working hard, holding the faith; and I know that with God all things are possible, and I’m just remaining positive. I know that once my injuries calm down, I will be back on the track next year.
“I think my main issue is struggling with the injuries that I have, and it’s still there, but it’s just about getting over the injury itself, as well as the mental part. I’m still dealing with injury, and I’m in the process of getting over it, but the mental part is so hard to get over,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair is a 10 time National 800m champion who represented the Monk Street base school in the old capital, St. Jago before journeying to the United States of America to join the track team at Essex County College in Newark, NJ. She has broken many records and also set many while there as an outstanding student-athlete.
She was a part of the then 4×800 meter record breaking Junior College team. The record still stand in NJCAA record books to this day. She has also represented Seaton Hall University in the NCAA championship.
Kenia first broke onto the international scene in 2005. On June 12, 2006, Sinclair broke Inez Turner’s 10 year old record to become the 5th Jamaican woman to go under two minutes with a personal best 1:57.88, at a track meet in Rethymno, Greece.
Sinclair has been one of Jamaica’s most productive female two-lap specialists. She won a silver medal in the 800m at the 2006 World Indoor Championships and won a silver in the Commonwealth Games also in 2006. Sinclair finished sixth in the final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She finished one place lower, finishing seventh in the final at the World Championships in Daegu in 2011 after failing to make it past the semi-final stage in 2009.
The 2011 season was the dream for Sinclair who won six of her 11 meets on the circuit and she also showed her mettle in the 1500m as well. The dream of propelling upward the ladder was affected by a back injury in 2012.
This has prevented her from making an eager return to the track to continue what she loves and enjoys doing. She missed the entire season in 2013 and has decided to move patiently back to the top, and as such has taken the 2014 track season off to allow her injuries to heal sufficiently.
Sinclair also expressed to the gleaner that it was bitter sweet seeing a national 800 female relay quartet at the inaugural world relays in Bahamas earlier this year.
“When I was home and I watched even the World Relays in The Bahamas and saw that Jamaica had a 4x800m team there without me, I felt happy to see that Jamaica was finally acknowledging distant running, but I was saddened that I wasn’t a part of it, even though I was so happy for the girls.” Said Sinclair.
Her name which spells KENIA is often misprounced by a lot of persons referring her as KENYA, land of the top distance runners in the world. The determined Sinclair hopes to emulates the African states when she next hits the track and bring more joy and pride to herself, family and nation.
* All quotes included in the article are taken from the Jamaica Gleaner
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