Kim Collins keeps running as St Kitts officials ponder next move ****************************** BY PAUL A REID Observer writer MONTEGO BAY, St James — Even as the St Kitts/Nevis track and field authorities have taken steps to set up a body that is expected to work towards a more harmonious relationship with their athletes, one of their most famous sons, Kim Collins, is prepared to continue his career without competing for his island home. Collins, the 2003 World Championships 100m gold medallist, has been in a public feud with the St Kitts & Nevis Athletics Association since he was kicked off the team at the Olympic Games in London in 2012 after they claimed he had left the Olympic village and stayed away without their consent. Since then, the acrimony between Collins and the track and field association has increased to the point where he has left the island of his birth and has lived in Montego Bay for the past year-and-a-half. The outspoken Collins, who set a personal best and world record 9.97 seconds for a 37-year-old man in July last year, was hesitant about continuing to talk about the situation, but told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday he was not hanging on to events of the past. I have moved on, he said when asked about the treatment from the St Kitts and Nevis AA. And thats why you see I have been able to compete and compete better than ever, every time, because I am training well and my body is holding up well and will continue to run as thats what I do, he said. Collins, who recently returned to the island after competing on the Indoor circuit and ran a personal best 6.49 seconds in late February, admitted he did not know what was going on with the reconciliation committee. But its the same people who have been in charge, he said with an air of frustration. The situation, he said, was kinda up in the air; I am not sure what is going on, not 100 per cent sure. Collins does not know how long he would continue to compete, especially if he was not allowed to represent St Kitts at championships like the Commonwealth Games that come up later this year, as well as the IAAF World Championships in China in August next year. I know my body feels good and I can go for another three years or so to 40 and beyond, said Collins, who will open his outdoor season next weekend at the UWI Classic at Mona. I am still competitive with the field now, but we will just take it one race, one day at a time. The UWI meet, he said, would give him an idea where he was in terms of his fitness and I will take it from there. Collins said it was not his hunger for competition and success that drives him, but rather the ability to compete and compete well. jamaicaobserver/sport/Kim-Collins-keeps-running-as-St-Kitts-officials-ponder-next-move_16269281
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 10:10:51 +0000