Olympic champ wants to inspire others to achieve greatness

Eight-time Olympic medalist Veronica Campbell Brown has taken on a new mission to inspire others to achieve their full potential.

This morning the elite Jamaican track and field sprinter signed copies of her book ‘Inside Out: Activate the Power Within You’ at Pages Bookstore in Cave Shepherd on Broad Street.

She told the audience the aim of the book is not only to inspire, “but also to highlight how great God is”.

“As a young girl… my Mom introduced me to the Lord and He has been the steward in everything I do.

“Throughout my career I never entered a race without praying. And whenever I faced challenges, I found my strength in the Bible,” an emotional Campbell Brown said, explaining that “I get very emotional when I talk about God”.

Campbell Brown specialises in the 100 and 200 metres, and has won the world championships at the youth, junior and senior levels. She is one of only nine athletes to achieve this feat.

She has, however, faced several setbacks in her career, including reports in 2013 that she tested positive for a banned substance while competing at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Supreme Ventures meet, which resulted in a provisional suspension.

She denied that she had intentionally taken banned substances, and later that year the JAAA cleared her to resume competition. They ruled that the substance in question was contained in a cream she used for a leg injury.

“Even though God is our strength and is guiding us, that doesn’t mean we will go through life smoothly; we will have setbacks. Because sometimes our setbacks ….are the things God uses to test our faith and to see if we’re deserving of what he is trying to give us.

“Because throughout my career it has not been easy. I’ve had setbacks, I’ve had disappointment, I’ve had so many things happened over the years, but I was able to stay strong. Even when certain circumstances came I was able to get over it and get in the victory because I did not rely on my own strength, I relied on the strength of the Lord to pull me through and to make sure that the wrongs were made right,” she said.

Campbell Brown is attending the inaugural Caribbean High Performance Summit at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre this weekend – a forum for academics and practitioners involved in elite sports in the Caribbean, North America and Europe.

She gave birth to her first child, a baby girl, in February.  As for her future in track and field, she told Barbados TODAY she is not competing this season, and has not yet decided on next year’s Olympics.

“I haven’t thrown in the towel, I’m still thinking about 2020 and I will make a decision sometime this year and see if I want to,” she said. (MCW)