Jamaica at the 2007 World Athletic Championships

Just over a week ago Jamaica celebrated its best ever haul at the IAAF World Championships.

.Overall the Osaka meet was a big success for the island. One gold, six silver and three bronze medals is a very good return at a meet which attracted the best in the world.

The star for Jamaica was undoubtedly Veronica Campbell who re-established herself, after injury, as one of the world's outstanding sprinters with a gold and two silver medals.

Campbell who added world championships 100m gold to the 200m gold she won at the Olympics in 2004 is fast approaching greatness and could, within a few years, be hailed as the greatest ever Jamaican athlete, male or female.

Great achievements

Her achievements are there for all to see. She has won individual gold medals at every world level. It started with World Youth 100m gold in 1999, then became the first woman to lift the World Junior sprint double in 2000. After winning an Olympic relay silver in Sydney 2000, Campbell went on to take the 200m gold in Athens in 2004, and world championships 100m silver at Helsinki in 2005.

While Campbell was outstanding and sprint hurdler Delloreen Ennis and 400m runner Novlene Williams both won bronze medals my female athlete of the meet was 400m hurdler Nickiesha Wilson. Wilson, an Alpha old girl now attending Louisiana State University, did not win a medal but she showed vast improvement during the meet.

Wilson went to Osaka with a personal best 54.94 and chopped almost a second off that time. She reached the final and placed fourth after clocking a new personal best of 53.97 in the semi-finals. All this came after she had won a surprising silver medal earlier this summer at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Among the men, the standout performer was Maurice Smith. Smith not only smashed his own national record for the decathlon but he came close to upsetting world record holder Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic. Dogged by an elbow injury, Smith threw just 53.61m in the javelin, while his rival had a personal best 71.18m. He really gave Sebrle a scare, however, and a lot of eyes will be on him in Beijing next year.

World record holder Asafa Powell disappointed many of his fans by not winning the 100 metres in Osaka, but he hit back really well on Sunday by clocking a new world mark of 9.74 seconds.

While I did not see him placing third I was not surprised that Powell lost to American Tyson Gay in Osaka. Gay was the in-form man who, up until then, was running all the fast times. Powell went into the meet with a best of 9.90. Gay had a best of 9.84 and also clocked a fast 19.62 over 200m. It was clear that once he came out of the blocks early he would have been very dangerous.

The elusive gold

While he has lowered the world mark Powell still has it all to prove again at next year's Olympics. Running a world record is always a great achievement, but records come and go. An Olympic gold medal winner, however, will always remain an Olympic champion.

Powell proved on Sunday, with his 9.74 and 9.78 two hours later that he can run fast times with little rest. It is my view that next year in Beijing he should throw caution to the wind and run fast every time he goes on the track. Based on Sunday's showing four fast races in two days should not be a problem for him