This article was posted on Track and Field News today.
Jared Connaughton insists he isn't haunted by ghosts as he eyes the 2008 Olympic Games later this summer in Beijing, China.
In fact, said the 23-year old New Haven native, a nightmarish baton drop in an international 4x100-metre relay race last year in Japan made him a better sprinter. The bumble at the IAAF world athletics championships in Osaka which cost Team Canada, considered medal worthy, a chance at the podium and left the team dead last.
"I'd just turned 22 and I had an opportunity in front of the entire track and field world, in front of 90,000 people, and I made a mistake and my team suffered because of the mistake. After the race . . . I fessed up and I said 'I saw the baton, I reached for it and I didn't present my hand correctly'. We didn't get the hand-off right. At that level it has to be perfect or damn close to perfect in order to be competitive," said Connaughton in a recent interview from Arlington, Texas.
Maybe his post-race admission to relay mates Richard Adu-Bobie, Anson Henry and Neville Wright exorcised the spirit immediately and didn't allow it to fester.
Whatever the reason, it's working. Proof lies in a personal and Canada-best 10.15 run in the 100-metre sprint at a track meet recently in Texas.
It's a big number, opening doors to professional races internationally and fixing Connaughton on the Olympic Games radar. A 10.21 is the A standard time the International Olympic Committee requires for Games qualification.
If he maintains that norm through several planned pro races this year leading up to July's Canadian track and field championships in Windsor, Ont., then running for Team Canada on the world's largest track stage in Beijing is likely.
His 10.15 also countered thoughts he would disappear.
"A lot of people said 'this guy's going to go under a rock and he's never going to show his face again'. But I said 'you know what? I'm going to take this failure or whatever you want to call it and I'm going to grow as an athlete from it'," said Connaughton. "Really it's a blessing in disguise because a lot of athletes don't get that opportunity to begin with and they don't get that chance to redeem themselves."
Redemption comes in other forms, too. He's a pro runner now following a strong running career the University of Texas at Arlington  he graduated with an anthropology degree  and recently signing with Top Elite Management, a Canadian sports marketing firm. He trains at UTA with coach Monte Stratton.
The time also plants him near the big-money circuits like the Golden League, which generally pits the world's best track athletes against each other in European stops such as London, Brussels, Zurich and Rome.
Prize money and appearance fees are negotiated depending upon results in other races and, of course, speed  because people will pay to watch other people run fast.
Top runners in the 1990s like Canada's Donovan Bailey and Maurice Green earned thousands of dollars per appearance. Asafa Powell, the current 100-metres world record holder at 9.74, banked $250,000 after winning six Golden League events in 2006.
Connaughton, who has run in a few indoor races in Europe, admits he's not Powell-ish yet, but the Texas result should raise a few eyebrows and spur on improvement.
"After this 10:15 I think my bargaining options have really opened up because that's a fast time no matter where you run it. The faster you go, the better you finish, the bigger the meet, the bigger the payout," he said, "But right now money isn't necessarily a driving factor. It's more about consistency, quality and peaking and being ready at the right time."
In Windsor, he's entered in the 100-metres and 200-metres, but will decide on-site whether to run the 200. The 4x100-metre Olympic relay squad team is selected on placing at the nationals, but he's confident there is a spot for him after making the team for Osaka and the silver medal-winning squad at the 2007 Pan American Games.
And maybe he's not tormented by those pesky phantoms because he's just outrunning them. And that's not such a bad thing.
"I've really become a very efficient, very technical runner and I think that that causes consistency and having a breakout performance."
