Some athletes have fame thrust upon them, others inherit it. Being the offspring of one of Guyana’s dazzling sprinters of the 90’s, Brenessa Thompson can claim to be the beneficiary of the latter happenstance.
But, the young US-based track star is going beyond the obvious innate privileges, to clean house for space to store her steadily mounting personal accolades. And, her family is agog over her path to be a household name in track and field circles, according to her thrilled dad, Brennon.
“I’m very proud of her. It’s not like she’s filling my shoes. Actually it’s the reverse because she has achieved more than me,” pops Brennon told this newspaper when comparing their athletics ‘reserves’. “As a matter of fact I keep telling her I got my training at 16 and she ran Under-15 for TT at CAC … so, I never dream of running for my country at 15 … At 15-years old I was just a normal boy running around the place,” the older Thompson bared in a winded revelation.
Now, Thompson accompanies his 18-year old daughter to Guyana for the fifth edition of the Boyce-Jefford Track and Field Classic this weekend in Linden, and there is mounting buzz on her expectations. She hopes to put a superfluous close to her 2014 season with a sweeping statement.
Ironically, Thompson is awakening to a ‘second coming’ after she, herself, was taken to the cleaners in her first year running individual events in the USA, though her contributions were central on championship relay teams. “Now I have greater faith in my abilities,” declared the athletics progeny who calls herself ‘track royalty’; probably a presage on her generational acclaim to track.
The year has been bitter-sweet for the cute Cancer-born. After a knee injury at the start of the indoor season, she came back in her first major race to win the High School Girls 55m (7.15s) at Millrose Games. She, then, failed to repeat as champ at the New Balance Nationals, placing 3rd, but lowering her time to 7.10s, then 7.03s to cap the undercover circuit.
“I think my performance was really good,” said Thompson, gratefully. “The whole field was faster and coming back from injury was really overwhelming. I think I was over-thinking things. I was really nervous.”
Nerves were replaced with self-belief, and the sweet began crystallising as the outdoor circuit dawned. She made the finals of the 100m and 200m at her first Carifta Games, then snagged the 100m silver at the US High School Nationals, and finished off with tongue-wagging semi-final showings at her baptism to the global stage, the World junior Championships. Incidentally, Thompson was the best-performing Caribbean athlete in the short sprints.
She had personal best times of 11.60s (100m) and 23.91s (200m), though she can boast of a winded aided 11.34s in the century.
Thompson comes to the meet with a bounding triple range from 100m to 400m, and local fans will have witness testimony to the genesis of a track star with a trifecta heritage of being born in Guyana, partially wrought in Trinidad and now being moulded in the USA.
A two-year migrant to the USA, Thompson landed at the exalted Medgar Evers College track fraternity and has had to uphold an outstanding Guyanese tradition of top female performers at the institution, after Shaniece Daphness, Analisa Austin, Ashley Tasher, and doing relays with 400m sensation Kadecia Baird. Ironically, Baird was a consideration for this weekend’s meet, but declined a week ago.
Under the tutelage of Shaun Dietz and Nicola Martial, Thompson was coached into pasting the potential she exhibited while in Trinidad. Then rubbing shoulders with Baird reduced when the quartermiler progressed to the collegiate ranks last Fall. “She as a whole has helped me be a better athlete and she has told me of her experiences at the national level which did well for my confidence,”
While Baird had the moniker ‘closer’ for her anchor prowess, Thompson could embrace the label ‘cleaner’ for her early legs pacing and positioning in relays. She has a little more of the street fighter about her and, although watching her sprint could never be described as a chore, it is perhaps the cauldron of determination she possess that peers and pundits alike have respected her drive to succeed.
She carries a slight weight being a chip-of-the-ole-block. As a matter of fact, “Sometimes I feel pressure knowing my dad did this and he would want me to go higher than him, but … am …,” she stuttered a bit, before concluding that “there are ways to overcome that.”
Interestingly, the teenager will have to ensure a clean pair of heels to overcome her opponents in the imminent, eminent meet in Linden, and stamp her ‘better-than-dad’ prowess in the house that her dad enjoyed rites of passage to etch his name eons ago.
But, don’t get her drive to over-emulate twisted. The older Thompson is not deadbeat on being motivational. “He encourages me to train hard and challenges me to do really, really well,” she confessed.
And, that won’t be lost on the boldly muscled lass with the irrepressible smile, discreet social demeanour and eccentric hairstyles. She is poised to be, not only Guyana’s next track star, but the next female athlete to approach the fashion world with the same kind of swagger for which she is known on the track.
Thompson wants to be a professional runner specializing in the 100m, and recognizes that the ‘dog fight’ that awaits on the global level takes no prisoners. “I’ll always be doing my best to make the time, qualify and run good,” assessed the affable athlete who also wants to be a flight attendant away from the track.
After a stop-over in Trinidad for her part summer vacation, she’s now back home in the quarters of her beginnings, and on the track this weekend, she really intends to clean house; knowing “that this will be my most unprepared run ever, but I will give my best ‘cause I must protect that house, too.”
