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DPalmer/TrackLife Photos
An injured Murphy (21.48), center, is beaten into 3rd place by Odane Skeen of Wolmer’s Boys Schools (21.40), left, and Munro College's Delano Williams (21.47.) in the 200m at Champs 2010.
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Jamaica’s junior sprinter Jazeel Murphy is on his way back to his usual top-end speed. The 16-yr-old, whom Jamaica and the Caribbean waited to see shatter records last year, sustained a season-ending hamstring injury at the 100th running of Champs, Jamaica’s high school track and field championships in Kingston. Fans who had him on their radar were disappointed and feared the worst when the young speedster grabbed the back his leg near the end of the Class 2 200m final and was later taken from the track on a stretcher.
Prior to that race, Murphy was pulled from the preliminaries of the 100m where he was to defend his title. After he left the track, his coach Carl Page pointed out that the athlete wasn’t fully recovered from an injury earlier in the season and that as a precautionary measure he would take Murphy out of competition for the rest of the year. But that wasn’t the first time Murphy went down. At the 2008 Champs, he managed to win the Class 3 200m final in 22.62 seconds before falling to the track in pain.
Murphy goes down to hamstring pain
after the 200m final at Champs 100.
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According to Page, Murphy’s growth spurts have caused one of his legs to be shorter, which is the reason behind his consistent problems. This condition has required him to be fitted with special insoles.
Now fully recovered, he’s in training and is fairly okay, Page told Caribbean TrackLife this week. In adding that “we are taking things one step at a time to see how well he’s progressing,” Page said Murphy ran the 150m in competition early December – the Tyser-Mills Development meet – and clocked 16.6 seconds to win. He defeated Javere Bell (16.7), another national representative. Murphy won’t compete at the annual Jamaica College (JC) meet in Kingston today, January 8; however, he should be in further action long before he competes at the 2011 Champs in March, just after he turns 17.
At Champs, he will step up to the Class One category for 16-to-19 year-old schoolboys. Should Murphy stay healthy, a fierce battle is expected to play out between him and younger-by-six-months Odane Skeen who beat him at the Championships last year, went to Carifta and lowered Murphy’s 200m record to 20.84, then took 100m gold in a personal best 10.42 at the inaugural 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore. (Skeen later sustained back injury in December.)
It was in 2008 that Murphy arrived on the Champs scene. He then really skyrocketed in 2009, when he blew away his rivals on the track – all the way from Champs to the CARIFTA Games, and the world began to pay attention.
But Mom Jacqueline Robinson saw her son’s fleet-footedness long before others did and in hindsight realizes that the signs were there since he was an infant. “He always liked to run. When he was little you always had to run to the shop with him,” she recalled while sitting in the stands at Champs last year to see him compete in a 200m heat. Her son later described how she usually goes into a daze whenever he has an impending race, and remains that way until she bursts into uncontrollably joy and pride after the whole thing is over.
Carifta double and record
Now, neither Murphy’s mom nor several of his peers can begin to match strides with him; it takes something like a hamstring problem for him to be beaten. At the 2009 Champs, as well as the 2009 St. Lucia CARIFTA Games, Murphy was 15 years old and took the Class 2 100m and the Under-17 sprint double, respectively, in fine style with times of 10.44, and 10.41 and 20.97. His 200m run was a Carifta record. He also anchored Jamaica’s team to a 40.76 meet record. Thereafter, fans could not wait to see him again. As a matter of fact, he was the talk of track circles far and wide as over-excited fans tipped him to be Jamaica’s next sprint sensation.
However, his coach tried to bring everyone back to earth, pointing out that his charge didn't know how to start a race correctly, was still learning how to run, and was just enjoying himself.
The coach’s reality didn’t change the mindset of Murphy’s believers. “He’s the one I came to see,” said Dr. Stephan Assam, a football (soccer) enthusiast, as he waited for Murphy’s race at Champs 100. Assam might have been one of thousands of disappointed fans when Murphy’s hamstring resisted his move to surge into the lead of the 200m final, but allowed him to hold on for 3rd before quickly sitting on the track.
After the race, Murphy said he believed the pull he felt wasn’t serious and that he’d be fine for upcoming competition. In the end though, it sidelined him and took him off the team to the April 2010 CARIFTA Games in the Cayman Islands (where games organizers were anticipating his dominance), as well as the IAAF World Junior Championships in Canada and the CAC Junior Championships in the Dominican Republic in July.
Maybe Murphy’s track talent is a matter of genetics. His mother ran the sprints and his father competed in long-distance races. The younger Murphy started running track in 2003 in primary school, where he ran the sprints and the relay. Today he still runs both 100m and 200m – though he prefers the half lap event – and looks up to former world record holder Asafa Powell because “I just like how he carries himself.”
He doesn't like the hype
Even though there has been much buzz about him, the Bridgeport Comprehensive student doesn’t see himself as a star and doesn't relish the hype. However, seemingly reserved, he’s endowed with a lion’s heart to take on any challenge. He’s sometimes a little nervous just before a race, depending on the competition, but he doesn’t feel intimidate by anyone. To relax himself, he concentrates on his coach’s instructions and listens to music.
Armed with those tools, Murphy took on several sprinters senior to him in the Olympic Development 200m at the UWI Invitational meet in Kingston last February, and clocked 21.20 seconds for 2nd to the 2010 national 400m champion Oral Thompson (20.88).
Track isn’t the only activity this cool teen is excited about though. He loves Mom’s Sunday dinners, which is perhaps why he wants to be a chef who eventually owns a restaurant.
The young sprinter is also academically inclined. He got into Bridgeport High School by way of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), Jamaica’s high school entrance exam, and he enjoys doing math.
Mom has described him as “a good child…well behaved” whom she has never had to discipline the good old Caribbean way.
“No, I never raised them like that,” she said about her parenting of him and his older sibling. “I could talk to them and they would understand.”
As a typical teenager, Murphy likes playing video games, going to the beach or staying in his room to listen music or “just chill.” And yet he’s quite funny in a laidback and subtle way, especially around his family and friends.
Does he ever think about going abroad to live and develop his athletic and culinary talents? “Noooo,” was his definitive answer. “I’m not leaving Jamaica; it’s too cold over there.”