BOUNCING BACK:Long road from heartbreak leads Brooks to gold

Gordon Williams, Gleaner Writer

Just over a week ago, Jamaica recoiled in the embarrassment that national uniforms had not accompanied the country's team to the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) senior track and field championships in Mexico.

Athletes feared they would be unable to wear the black, green and gold - or even compete - because of the administrative blunder. But missing gears didn't faze all. At least one, Sheri-Ann Brooks, had long decided nothing would block her goal.

"She was on a mission and her mission was to go and win the 100 metres," Brooks's Jamaica-born coach Marlon Malcolm said the day after the United States-based sprinter grabbed gold. "Gears or no gears, she planned to go out there to win."

Brooks's plans have not always stayed on track. After early promise, including a Commonwealth Games 100 metres title in 2006, she appeared on the cusp of breaking into the conversation about Jamaica's elite female athletes. That dream abruptly derailed in 2009 when Brooks tested positive for a banned stimulant at Jamaica's national trials after earning a spot on the team to the World Championships in Athletics (WCA).

FOUND NOT GUILTY

She was eventually found not guilty, but prevented from running at the WCA in Germany. Brooks, undeservedly, had been dumped into a foul-smelling pile labelled "cheaters" in a sport laden with suspicion of anyone - guilty or not - remotely connected to performance enhancers.

The cruel irony, according to Malcolm, was that the sample taken from Brooks at the trials, which produced the positive test, resulted from ingredients found in a supplement drink she ingested following the 100 metres.

"She couldn't have been seeking an edge because she took it after the race," he explained. "She took it while in the doping room waiting her turn."

The "it" was a drink, Malcolm said, similar to supplements Brooks had taken for years. Normally, she would travel with the powdered form and mix it with water, he explained. It helped her recover. Brooks, he said, chose to take the liquid form of a similar product to Jamaica and drank it to aid her recovery for the upcoming 200 metres.

The sprinter's support team, including Malcolm and her agent Kris Mychasiw, said they checked the contents of the drink, bought in a United States store, and there was no indication it contained any substance on the banned list issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) or the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). According to Malcolm, while using the powder and water-mixed version of the supplement, Brooks had been tested several times in Europe leading up to the trials with no positive result for a banned substance. In addition, he argued, the supplement Brooks drank at the trials tested positive for a substance not on the banned list, but was determined a member of "a family of what was on the WADA list".

None of that cushioned the jolt to Brooks, who got the bad news in July 2009, just weeks from WCA.

"She was in shock," said Malcolm, who has coached Brooks since 2000. "She couldn't believe it was happening to her."

The sprinter's team swore her innocence. A bundled administrative process of getting Brooks's B - or backup - sample tested in Canada helped her case. Eventually, the Appeals Tribunal of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO), the local body which monitors doping in Jamaica, cleared Brooks.

IRREGULARITY WITH TESTING

"We were unable to impose a sanction on her, as there was an irregularity with the testing of the B sample that was raised by her counsel," Kent Gammon, JADCO's head of the disciplinary committee, explained in published statements. "Therefore, we were unable to conclude that she was guilty of an offence."

But freedom from the doping charges came at a hefty price. The JADCO hearings wore Brooks down.

"That took a lot of toll on her mentally," said Malcolm, "thinking about what was going on."

Meanwhile, Shelly-Ann Fraser and Kerron Stewart, who beat Brooks into third at the trials, finished one-two in the WCA 100 metres. Aleen Bailey, her replacement in the event, reached the final, where Brooks's personal best of 11.05 seconds would have been good enough for sixth place.

Brooks essentially shut down the remainder of 2009. She lost money in appearance fees. Her hair started falling out under the stress, Mychasiw claimed. According to her coach, she barely ate.

"She did a lot of crying," said Malcolm. "She stayed by herself a lot. She also slowed down."

Brooks's camp sought help outside the track. Donna and Errol Brooks, her parents in Jamaica, offered valuable support.

"A lot of calls back and forth motivated her," said Malcolm.

But the entire saga "was humiliating for everybody," he added, and for Brooks it became "hard to face the crowd, face the media."

She remains elusive, avoiding personal interview requests, including one for this story. Yet, about five months after learning of the test result, Brooks re-emerged.

"It took a bit of time," said Malcolm. "Then she started to come around. She started to talk about track and field ... She started to get back into the swing."

In 2010, Brooks hoped to jump-start her career. But in May she collided with a cameraman in Brazil and damaged tendons in her right knee, ending her year. She returned in February 2011. The desire was back, Malcolm said, but Brooks failed to make Jamaica's 2012 Olympic team.

CAC 2013 was the first opportunity for Brooks to race in Jamaica's colours at a major event since the 2009 doping incident. The 100 metres gold and the 4x100 metres relay triumph made her story one of redemption.

Brooks's sluggish 100 metres final time of 11.21 is not an immediate worry, said Malcolm. That he blamed on a false start in the race, which forced her to "sit back in the blocks." The 30-year-old is just happy to compete for Jamaica again, especially at WCA 2013 in Russia, where she's a member of the 4x100 team.

"First thing she told me (after the CAC 100 metres) was that it was very good to come back to represent her country," said Malcolm.

But absence forced by the doping incident and injury had robbed Brooks of precious capital.

MAJOR COST

"It cost her a lot," said Malcolm. "It took a whole lot."

It left a scar, which may have jarred open recently after news broke that Jamaica's sprint darling Veronica Campbell-Brown (VCB) tested positive for a banned substance. VCB's case has nothing - and everything - to do with Brooks.

"People ask me about it," said Malcolm, backing Campbell-Brown. "But experience is wisdom ... Anything can happen."

He tries "not to bring (VCB's saga) up" in conversations with Brooks, but knows where she stands.

"She knows Veronica more than I do and she understands that Veronica has too much to lose to do something like that," Malcolm said. "She doesn't believe Veronica would do something like that."

Incidents like her own and VCB's make Brooks ultra wary. She leaves little to chance. Her recovery drink, for example, is now coconut water obtained directly from a "jelly man" in Florida.

"We cut off all supplements right now," Malcolm said. " ... We have gone back to the days when you used to live in Jamaica. That's how she gets her vitamins, from natural vegetables. Her diet has changed extremely."

Brooks's image is shaping nicely too. She ran 11.08 in Canada this year, a sign her best is near. Her dream, to win an individual medal at the Olympics or WCA must wait, but her story, once clouded by sadness and disappointment, is becoming inspirational.

"It goes to show that no matter what an athlete goes through, once they have a goal, they can accomplish it," said Malcolm. "... She has been hit by setbacks, but she has bounced back."