History-making Veronica Campbell-Brown’s exploits count her an immortal

Veronica Campbell Brown could easily be described as one of Jamaica’s sprinting icons who brought several firsts to the tiny island in the athletic world.

Born in Clark's Town, Trelawny, the diminutive Campbell-Brown was quoted in the Jamaica Star newspaper in 2020 as saying she was “Born to Run,” and run she did.

As a teenager, she earned a name for herself at Vere Technical High school, where she was when she bagged the first of her 27 career international gold medals as a member of Jamaica's CAC Junior Under-17 Championship 4x100 relay team back in 1996.

A hard worker and dedicated individual, Campbell Brown’s progress through the age group ranks would bring more and more success with, 12 junior and youth gold medals.

In 1999, she won two gold medals, the 100 metre and 4 x 100 metre relay at the inaugural IAAF World Youth Championships.

The following year, she became the first female to win the sprint double at the IAAF World Junior Championships.

She took the 100m in 11.12 s (which was a championship record at the time) and the 200m in 22.87 s.

At the 2000 Olympic Games, she ran the second leg on the silver medal-winning 4 x 100m Jamaican relay team.

In 2001, she was awarded the Austin Sealy Trophy for the most outstanding athlete of the 2001 CARIFTA Games. That year, she won 3 gold medals (100, 200, and 4 × 100-metre relay) in the junior (U-20) category.

Veronica seemed destined for top of women’s sprinting and that hope became fact at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, when she took gold in the 200m, bronze in the 100m, and led Jamaica to victory as the anchor in the 4x100-metre sprint relay.

That performance in Athens was the catalyst for her to become the most successful Caribbean athlete at the Olympics. Her individual win in the 200m established her as the first Caribbean woman to win an Olympic sprint title. Greater achievements were to come when she took gold in the 100m at the 2007 World Championships.

With this victory, Veronica earned the distinction of being the first Jamaican track and field athlete, male or female, to win a major senior international title in the 100 metres. That performance also earned her the distinction of being the first athlete ever to win the full available slate of IAAF sprint titles.

The former Barton Community College and the University of Arkansas Alum did the unthinkable in 2008 as she outran her competitors to take gold in the 200m at the Beijing Olympics, making her the second woman in all the history of the Olympic Games to defend her 200m title.

Veronica Campbell-Brown’s athletic prowess and longevity continued to be demonstrated at the 2010 World Indoor Championships, where she won gold (60m) and led the world’s recorded times in both the 100m and 200m.

She followed up this performance at the 2011 World Outdoor Championships by winning the 200m as well as silver in the 100m and another silver medal as a member of the 4x100m relay team.

Veronica, again, won the 60m at the World Indoor Championships in 2012 but could only manage a bronze in her individual 100m race at the London Olympics that same year. By the time Veronica’s international athletics career came to an effective end with a relay silver medal at the 2016 Olympics, she had been performing internationally for the first 17 years of the millennium.

It was only fitting that after an illustrious and decorated career that the Jamaican government immortalised Campbell Brown with a statue, which currently sits amongst the greats of the sport at the National Stadium in Kingston.

Now, the married mother of one, the 2009 UNESCO Champion of Sport awardee, has been doing a lot of philanthropic work through her VCB Foundation which provides resources to and mentors young women in Jamaica.