The phrase "like father, like son" can easily describe Barbadian sprinter Andrew Hinds and his dad when it comes to one thing at least: Track.
Andrew, 25, is the fastest man in Barbados with personal bests of 10.03 secs. and 20.38 secs. over the 100m and 200m, respectively. Hadley, his father, was one of a two-man team that represented the eastern Caribbean island for the first time at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968. He was 22 at the time and ran the 200m there in 22.3 secs. but did not advance beyond round one.
"I was running from the time I was small," the younger 5'9" Hinds told
Caribbean TrackLife when we caught up with him in training at the Maximum Velocity Performance (MVP) track club in Kingston, Jamaica where he lives. "My father did track as well so he kinda pushed me."
In 2004, Hinds went to Jamaica because "personally, I think Stephen Francis is the best coach in the world. I wanted to improve my time, so I came to train here." He sometimes returned to his homeland for three months each time but saw marked improvements in 2008 after he stayed a full year in Kingston.
His training routine is no magic but boils down to dedication to get what he wants. He starts training at 6 a.m. for a couple of hours then returns in the evening to do strength work.
That dedication paid well for Hinds. He hit good form last season, racing to a personal record at the time of 10.16 secs., then clocking 10.18secs. +0.9 m/s to win the Barbados Olympic trials despite a back injury. In Beijing things went a little different though. He placed 5th in his 100m heat in 10.35, the fifth losing time, which was enough to advance to the second round. There he improved to 10.25 secs., finishing fifth in his heat again but not surviving the round.
Running for MVP at the 2009 UTech Track & Field Classic in Kingston, Hinds as the leadoff runner teamed up with Michael Frater and Nesta Carter, two members of Jamaica's record-breaking 4x100m team at the Beijing Olympics, and Jamaican Ainsley Waugh to clock 38.46 secs. The time erased the previous mark of 39.22 secs. set by the same team in 2008 and ranked second best in the world this season for a short period.
But his calling attention to himself on the track didn't stop there. He traveled back to compete in his country's national trails on June 21, and smoothly blew away the field in the 100m, clocking 10.03 (0.0w) though easing up some five meters from the line. Ramon Gittens was a distant second in 10.25.
A product of Ellerslie, St. James Secondary and Coleridge & Parry in Barbados, Hinds cited his most embarrassing moment on the track as his performance at the Gibson Relays in 2005, his first year in Kingston. "I ran a very bad time and I was expecting to do better." But what a difference one year made! "My most exciting moment was [2006] when I came third at the CAC [Central American and Caribbean] Games in the 200m. I ran 20.83 secs."
Hinds isn't planning to leave Jamaica any time soon. "I was thinking about being a massage therapist; ¦it had crossed my mind a couple of times," he said, adding that he would have to study in Jamaica because that's where he spends most of his time.