It has been exactly two years to the day, since a 7.0 magnitude earthquake ravaged Haiti, which was without a doubt much maligned even before the natural disaster. An estimated 220,000 Haitians lost their lives that day with over 1.5 million losing their homes. Still, even two years later, over 500,000 people reside in camps in and around the capital — Port-au-Prince (PaP). Personally, I can only speak to how blessed I was to not lose any family members in spite of the fact that several of my aunts and uncles flew down to PaP on the day of the quake for a funeral. My grandparent’s lost their home and I spent the next week or so literally holding my breath as my family and I tried to make contact with our family members on the island. Considering how difficult that task tends to be on a normal day, you can imagine what it was like immediately following January 12, 2010.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After visiting PaP and Cap-Haitien last spring I can say that there is more to be done than one would like to see at this point, but progress is being made and that’s better than nothing even if it’s at a snail’s pace. The song I included above is by the extremely popular kompa group, T-Vice, and was released following the earthquake to inspire, unite and give people hope. I can honestly say that I listen to the song on a regular basis am inspired each and every time that I do so; although I wouldn’t listen to the song immediately before a competition or workout. The gist of the song’s lyrics, for those who don’t speak creole, encourage the country as a whole to never let go and never give up especially since Haiti has been fighting (whether other natural disasters, the French or ruthless dictators) since 1791. The country’s history is one that could truly be made into several, distinct and individually moving Oscar winning productions and a happy ending/2nd act is slowly but surely being penciled into the story. I’m looking forward to playing my role in the more recent, more positive stories of the island, both as an athlete and as someone who actually made a difference working hands-on on the island.

“L’Union Fait La Force.”

I keep saying that I need to blog on a more frequent and more consistent basis, and I really do mean it when I say it; let’s see if I can actually get the ball rolling in 2012 though.

In any case, for this first blog post of 2012 I just wanted to share an interview that I recently did with BBC Sports. Check it out, feel free to comment here and also check out (and ‘like’) my Facebook Fan Page while you’re at it since I share tidbits there a little more frequently than I do here.

Training is going really well and I most likely won’t open up my season until February, in anticipation of the World Indoor Champs. We’re getting into things a little bit more gradually this time around since I’ve already hit all of the important competition standards. I’ll be back with some training and other updates in the near future.

Happy New Year folks!

On October 27^th I’ll be competing at my second Pan American Games which are officially underway as of Friday. My performance in a torrential downpour in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 is pretty amusing now that I look back at it. I think I jumped 15.45m even though my season best that year was 16.31m. I am certainly not the athlete that I was then and unless one of my teammates beats me to it this year, I plan on coming away with Haiti’s first Pan American Games medal in athletics. Training since Daegu has been…interesting and somewhat up and down. I’m sure my body is a bit surprised by being in this phase of training all the way into October but with a couple weeks until Pan Ams we’re starting to kick training up even more and things are beginning to fall into place and finally starting to get excited about being back on the runway.  I’m definitely excited to be one of the 12 athletes (8 track and field, 1 tae kwon do, 1 judo, 1 tennis and 1 weightlifting) representing Haiti at the Games though! Compare that to the US’s 600 athletes.

While my time with the kids was certainly the primary highlight of the trip I also had the opportunity to see and do things in Haiti that people who haven’t visited the country might only expect from other, more “tourist-friendly” islands. I even got to spend some time with my uncle and aunt which was a great experience in and of itself. This was before spending some time chatting with Wyclef about Haitian track and field and the country’s Olympic prospects.

We had some travel difficulties here and there and even with those in mind, it was a GREAT weekend. I came back to the States with a more heightened and focused sense of purpose overall as well as a desire to get back to work on the track with even more intensity than before.

We all know that a picture is worth 1000 words; so to keep this post from getting too wordy, I’ll share some pics from the trip.

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After being in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico since last Saturday morning, I was pretty eager to get the show on the road and Thursday night’s competition couldn’t come soon enough. I had gotten to watch Ayanna come back from injury and secure a bronze medal on Tuesday evening so I was that much more excited to join the fray. To start things off they originally had our competition scheduled to be held on the runway on the far side of the track (where there were few fans present). Of course you know that wasn’t going to stick, especially considering that the homestretch was packed with adoring triple jump/track and field fans! So after a few minutes of peaceful protesting and some walkie-talkie action between the officials, they gave in and quickly set up the other pit and runways for us.

I opened up the competition with a 16.56m jump which wasn’t at all what I was looking for to get things started. It put me in 2nd place behind a 17.20m opener for Randy Lewis from Grenada and later on I slipped to 3rd after Leevan Sands from the Bahamas got a couple of legal jumps in. One thing they warned us about while we were petitioning to switch runways was that we would be repeatedly interrupted by medal ceremonies crossing the runway to get to the infield. Couple that with the fact that we had 13 competitors in the competition and an officiating crew that was a liiiitle bit on the slow side when it came to switching the order after jumps 3 and 5, and it felt as if I had ‘forever and a day’ between jumps. I tend to like competitions that move along quickly so that I can get into a rhythm and get right back on the runway to correct the mistakes I made in previous jumps. This was not one of those meets. After each jump I felt some of my adrenaline leave me and my legs got tighter and tighter while sitting around. Once the finals came around though, we went from 13 to 8 jumpers and people also began to pass jumps so things really began to move along.

After being behind the board on jump 4 which resulted in a FLAT hop (we’ll call that one a warmup jump) I was ready to go on jump 5. Needless to say, jump 5 was the only jump where I stutter-stepped in the approach and I’m pretty proud of that. Jump 5 also ended up being my best jump of the meet and a season best (17.01m…first time over 17m this season). The jump itself still wasn’t what I was looking for though. Not only did I slow down a whole lot before the board but my heel landed squarely on the long jump board going into my jump phase. As you can imagine, landing on a hollow surface between phases is bad news and it inevitably = buckling; no matter how quick you tend to get off the ground. My jump phase on this jump was no different but I got what I could out of it and hit the sand just past the 17 meter mark. You’ll get no complaints from me though considering I know that shouldn’t have stutter stepped and that I should have gotten over the long jump board and yet I still made it out to 17 meters. Additionally, I’m pretty happy with the season best.

Before adding anything else I should probably note that by my 4th jump, I had slipped into 4th place. Y’all know that I had come to this meet to win; so not making the podium at all most certainly wasn’t going to happen! In any case, I think my 5th jump woke some people up because it catapulted me into 2nd and Leevan immediately followed up with a 17.01m jump of his own to take back 2nd (based on him having a better ‘second best jump’). I’ll admit I got a bit excited on my last jump considering that I knew exactly what to do differently from my 5th jump to nab the gold. I came down the run way a lot faster and as a result my last few strides were a little shorter than they had been on the previous attempt. I ended up behind the board and out of position which got me the same sort of jump as number 4. To cap off the competition the jumpers in the top two spots ahead of me swapped places in round six and I ended with the bronze. Though it’s two spots below where I saw myself going into the meet, I’m not being too hard on myself this time around.

To have my coach, one of my training partners (and better half) as well as my Haitian teammates there at the track supporting helped immensely! It’s pretty rare that my coach is able to make it to one of my meets so it was great to get feedback on the fly and it clearly helped to make the necessary adjustments after each jump. I know Ayanna felt the same way during her competition. It also didn’t hurt to see one of my teammates, Moise Joseph, earn a silver medal in the 800m while I was still in the heat of battle.

In spite of the fact that I didn’t get the W, this has to have been was of my most memorable track and field experiences given the ups and downs of the competition itself and the new shape that Team Haiti is taking (note the fly warmup suit in the picture above). Don’t get me wrong, as with all the other events I’ve been to in the past to represent Haiti, I’ve seen some things worth shedding tears over as far as the team is considered; but this post is more on the celebratory side so I’ll save that stuff. For now, I’m going to line up a few more meets to end the season and ensure that I “keep rising to the top,” both in the immediate future and for coming seasons of course. Mo and I also both agreed that things will keep on rising for Haitian track and field as well since this is the best we’ve done overall in some time (Dominique Degrammont finished 4th in the 110 hurdles, Pascal Delaunay was 5th in the women’s TJ and Alie Beauvais made the finals of the 400 hurdles); and I know we’re not finished growing.

Myself, Jeff, Ayanna and Moise with Ambassador, Raymond Joseph

Not only is education not guaranteed for children in Haiti, but neither is 3 square meals or clean water. Likewise, sports programs are relatively non-existent, as are venues for kids to run and play in safety. Since its inception the Haitian Sports Foundation has provided thousands of children with the opportunity to receive basic education on a daily basis, as well as at least two full meals. As an added bonus, children in HSF programs get the opportunity to learn sports like judo, boxing and tae kwon do from people who have excelled in them and want nothing more than to work with kids in need. There are also sports oriented summer camps, where the kids can continue their exploration of different sports and although the track and field season extends through August we (myself and the others in the picture above) are looking forward to going down and working with the HSF for a time. We’ll definitely be recruiting other US based Haitian athletes (and even non-Haitian athletes a la Ayanna who represents Trinidad and Tobago) who may want to make the trip. That said, apparently track and field has become pretty popular in Haiti so I think we’ll have a great time; although the work itself would have been more than worthwhile either way!

With Mario Arthur, President of the HSF

The USOC has also been doing an immense job of assisting Haitian sports on the international level. They have helped facilitate the transportation and outfitting of some of the Haitian teams for the Central American and Caribbean Games to be held in Puerto Rico in July. They’ve also donated a ton of money and equipment which I’m sure will be put to good use as long as it ends up in the right hands. While I’m looking forward to standing atop the podium at the CAC Games in July, I must say that the support that the USOC has shown and the efforts of others whom I met on Friday evening are beyond heartwarming. It means much more than people realize.

In related news, the Haitian track and field team now has a website up and running so feel free to check it out:  www.rohtf.com. For me, meet number one is less than a week away. Mt. Sac Relays here I come; “I’m going back back, to Cali Cali…”

After each meet I do my own post-meet analysis and though I’ll hold off on giving y’all ALL of those details I’ll at least share how things went overall and my general feelings on the meet. Notwithstanding the fact that Ayanna and I weren’t told that unattached athletes wouldn’t be allowed to compete in the finals until she’d already completed her first 3 jumps and I was on the runway just about to start mine; this was my best season opener to date. So in light of all the negatives that I took away from my performance, and the fact that I was vexed at not knowing about only being allowed three attempts before booking my travel, I have to consider the meet an overall success and a performance that I can definitely build from.

Last year I began the season with a 15.93m performance and was able to get out to 16.22m this past Saturday. Considering the practices that I had last week, I had a bigger jump than 16.22m in mind going into the meet so I was of course initially disappointed. My approach this year is further back than it has been in the past (like at the World Championships where it looked like I was running half the distance of all the other competitors!), so getting used to the new cadence of the approach and additional strides, seems like it will definitely take some time. I can say that without a doubt, my horrid approach this weekend was the reason for my falling short of my goal. I didn’t run entirely through the board and thus couldn’t get the hop phase my coach and I have been working on. There were other things that didn’t go particularly well but I’m certain that if I fix just my approach and hop, this 16.22 performance easily ends up being 16.70m+! I’ll consider putting footage of the jump in the “videos” section so you guys can see what I’m talking about.

I planned on competing just three or four times going into the World Championships and it’s now looking like 4 is the magic number since the meet this past weekend felt more like a practice than a full competition. I’m currently looking for a meet to compete at this coming weekend before heading to New York the first weekend of February. Odds are that I will be at the PG Sports Complex in Landover, Maryland competing at an all-comers meet this Sunday. I suppose “beggars can’t be choosers” especially since I just need a runway, a pit and some officials so that I can work on things in a meet setting. Back to work in the mean time which also unfortunately means getting ready for the first day of classes tomorrow.

Please don’t hesitate to check out www.yele.org or the Red Cross if you’re looking to make a difference in Haiti. There was always a reason for my providing the Yele link on my site’s main page, but their efforts are now several times more important than before. It really is greatly appreciated!