LONDON, CMC – Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell-Brown says she is eyeing a fifth consecutive Olympic Games despite her disappointing outing at the 30th Olympiad in London.
The marquee sprinter captured bronze in the 100 metres behind compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce who won gold but failed to defending her 200m title, finishing fourth as American Allyson Felix emerged champion.
At age 30 and with four Olympiads behind her, Campbell-Brown said she believed she can compete at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janiero.
“I think so, hopefully, I will be 34, my hero (Merlene Ottey) is 52, she is still running, so I’ll see,” Campbell-Brown said.
“I just need to take care of my body stay focus, and I think I’m looking forward, hopefully I’ll be there.”
Campbell-Brown won the 200m Olympic title in Athens eight years ago and in Beijing 2008, and also picked up gold at the World Championship in Daegu last year.
She entered London 2012 following an ordinary season, however, and failed to land a podium finish.
However, she managed to add silver in the women’s sprint relay to her collection, and said she was pleased with how things had turned out in London. “I’m happy, I give God thanks I finished healthy and going home with two medals so I have to be thankful,” she noted. “I think I have few more races and just take a break regroup and get ready for next year.”
She was especially thankful for the success of the 4x100m relay team after being part of the ill-fated Beijing quartet that dropped the baton.
Despite losing to the Americans, the Jamaicans came home in a national record 41.41 seconds.
“I’m happy I thank God that we could all come out here and we baton exchanged right and we gave it our all,” she said.
“It is excellent we broke the national record last year. We broke it this year so we are improving.”
She added: “We try to work together as much as possible … and make sure we get it (baton exchange) right. I think we do a very good job at that we just need to continue to work on what we need to work on and look forward to more relays and hopefully we get better every time we compete.”
