Kerron Stewart
Country:
Jamaica
DOB:
4/16/1984
Club:
Racers
Events:
100m, 200m
Events:
100m, 200m
Height:
5 ft 7in
Weight:
137 lb
Personal Best(s):
100m – 10.75 (Berlin, 2009); 200m – 21.99 (Kingston, 2008)
After snatching the national 100m title at the 2008 Jamaica Trials, defeating World Champion Veronica Campbell-Brown in the process, Kerron Stewart headed to Beijing, where she was one of three Jamaican women who created Olympic history when they ran 1-2-2 in the 100m in the Beijing Olympics and one of the two who could not be separated for silver and bronze, and therefore had to be awarded two silver medals. She also took bronze in the 200m bronze at those Games. At the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany, she again ran away with the 100m silver medal and anchored her country’s sprint relay team to victory.
The 29-yr-old holds the fastest non-winning time for the women’s 100m. At the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Stewart clocked 10.75secs for second place to countrywoman, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce who ran 10.73s.
A graduate of St. Jago High School in Jamaica, Essex County College and Auburn University in the US, Stewart, at 16 years old, gave the world a glimpse of her talent when she won the Under-18 Girls 100m in 11.95secs at the World Junior Championships in Santiago, Chile and then ran the second leg on Jamaica’s sprint relay team that took silver at that meet.
For Stewart, her compatriot Merlene Ottey is the greatest female athlete that the island has ever produced and remains her role model. “I don’t think that I can surpass what she has done. Maybe in terms of the times that I run, I will eventually get there. But in terms of the impact that she has had on track and field, it’s going to be hard to match that,” Stewart once told the media.
Known for her power and terrific closing speed on the straight-away, Stewart prefers either the backstretch or anchor leg of the relay. However, she is willing to perform duties wherever she is assigned. At the Moscow World championships, she ran the second leg on the team that took gold and set a new games record.