Defending Junior champion Dexter Lee of Jamaica at the IAAF Press conference (© Getty Images)
Defending men’s 100m champion Dexter Lee is taking things one step at a time, first win the gold then look to run fast times and then break records when he competes at the IAAF World Juniors Championships this week.
Lee who is known more for winning than for setting records, with two global titles, the World Youth title in 2007 and the World Junior title in 2008 in addition to a handful of high school gold medals won in Jamaica and regional titles at the CARIFTA, Central American and Caribbean Juniors and other events, will come into the meet as the favourite to win the gold medal come Wednesday evening.
Interestingly both winning times 10.51 seconds and 10.40 seconds respectively were the slowest in the history of both competitions
At Monday’s IAAF/LOC press conference Lee said that while he came into the meet with the joint fastest time in the world, a personal best 10.16 seconds, he was not expecting things to be easy.
“This will not be easy. I looked at the start list and see other people running close times to me but I am here to do my best and take back the gold medal (to Jamaica).”
Lee, who will also be taking part in the 200m which he won at the Jamaican National Junior Trials in early June, says he hopes to add significantly to the four IAAF medals he has so far but was cautious saying “one medal will be good for me.”
A training partner of double Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell Brown, the 19 year-old Lee said he draws inspiration from her on the training track, “she is always pushing us to work harder and yes she is an inspiration.”
As for the talk of records, Lee says the first one in sight would be the Jamaican National Junior record 10.11 seconds held by Yohan Blake since 2007, then the Championships record 10.09 seconds held by Trinidad’s Darrell Brown set eight years ago in Kingston.
As for the World Junior record of 10.01 seconds also held by Brown since 2003, Lee shrugged. After all that is not the priority now and he has the rest of the season to chase that.
Paul Reid for the IAAF
