Simeon Williamson on his Jamaican training
Great Britain’s European under-23 champion Simeon Williamson has just returned from Jamaica where he trained with the world’s leading sprint group. The promising young sprinter talks to spikesmag.com about the experience.
It is fair to say we here at spikesmag.com were a little surprised at the reply given by Simeon Willamson when we asked him what his toughest training session was under Jamaican sprint guru Stephen Francis.
We pride ourselves on having a reasonably open mind when it comes to planet athletics but
when the Brit answered "a 1000m time trial" we were forced to ask him to clarify. “1000m?” we gasped, scarcely believing our ears.
Willamson, let's remember, is not a middle-distance athlete or even a 400m sprinter. He is a 100m sprinter and an occasional 200m man.
For Williamson to carry out the 1000m time trial – that is two-and-a-half laps of the track – is very unusual for speedster like himself.
Was it then some bizarre punishment for a training misdemeanour or some belated attempt to step up in distance?
“We all did it,” said Williamson referring to Francis’ whole training group. “
The furthest I’d ever run before in training was 300m around the track. That was the scariest thing.”
So how long did it take? “3:16,” he answers cheerily. “
I thought it was going to be worse than that. I might do a little 1000m race somewhere,” he joked.
Now, of all the coaches in global athletics few have the appeal or mystique of Stephen Francis and it says much of his success that his athletes uncomplainingly carry out such tough – and some might say tortuous – training.
The giant Jamaican has re-written the rulebook about what is achievable and polished the very rough diamond of Jamaican athletics into the most powerful medal factory in the world of sprinting.
First, he produced Asafa Powell, who
BB (
Before
Bolt) would smash the world 100m record for fun and later, at the Beijing Games, guided Shelly-Ann Fraser and Melaine Walker to Olympic gold in the women’s 100m and 400m hurdles, respectively.
He is the most respected sprint coach on the planet, so when Williamson, a 10.03 100m sprinter, was given the opportunity for a two-month training stint with Francis’ group he jumped at the chance.
Williamson’s cousin, British Olympic high jump silver medallist Germaine Mason and Francis disciple, smoothed the process for the training link up and the British sprinter was fully supported by his coach, Lloyd Cowan, who wanted his athlete soak up the experience.
The Brit, who lived in the home of sprinter Ainsley Waugh for the duration of his two-month stay, had visited relatives on the Jamaican island several times in the past but this was no holiday. Training was to prove a very different experience from what he had been used to.
The first session of the day would begin at 6am – three hours earlier than he was used to even waking up at his North London home.
“
The first sessions I did I was half asleep,” said the Highgate Harrier. “Thankfully, when I landed it was a test week, so we didn’t have much running to do. I did get used to training at that time of the morning by about the last week I was there. They trained hard, harder than what I was used to.”
Training was also structured very differently. Instead of Williamson carrying out both his sprint and weights sessions on a morning they were split in two sessions across the day.
Facilities were also very different to that experienced at the state-of-the-art Lee Valley UK Athletics High Performance Centre and
the majority of work was carried out on a rudimentary grass track at the University of Technology in Kingston.
Not that Williamson, who regularly trained in temperatures of between 28-29 degrees, is seeking sympathy.
“
Doing the sessions with my shorts and trainers on in the sun compared with [training in] England with five layers on makes a big difference,” he added.
Williamson trained alongside the likes of Powell and his fellow Olympic 4x100m gold medalists Nesta Carter and Michael Frater and, while appreciating the value of pitting himself against such top-class athletes, it was working under the coaching of Francis which the Briton most values.
Francis has a reputation as fearsome taskmaster who does not suffer fools gladly, but Williamson insists this is a false impression.
“
He is a very nice guy,” he added. “He made me very welcome to the group. He is serious when he is serious, but he can have a laugh and a joke sometimes.”
It wasn’t all hard work for Williamson, however, and he enjoyed a few days off over Christmas relaxing with Powell and the rest of the group and took a trip to the theme park Mystic Mountain.
Williamson, who returned to Britain in mid-January, believes he in “good shape” for the indoor season and has not ruled out returning to Jamaica for training in the future.
Yet what was the biggest positive of his Caribbean training experience?
“
The best part of it was just training with those guys and [that] the door is open for me to go back,” said Williamson.
You never know, he might just be looking forward to that 1000m time trial next time around.
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