The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

She would have liked to be competing in an individual event, but sprinter V’Alonee Robinson is content with making her debut at the Olympic Games as a member of the women’s 4 x 100 meter relay team.

Robinson, the former St Augustine’s College standout now attending Auburn University, said she’s expecting the “unexpected” and is preparing herself for “anything that comes my way.”

She said she isn’t perturbed at all after not getting a chance to compete in either her specialty in the 100 meters or even the 200.

“It’s going to be a good experience nonetheless,” she stated. “It’s better to get the experience in something minor than something major so that I will know what to do when I come back the next time.”

Robinson, 20, is no stranger to running on the relay team. She has popped off before and if given the chance again, she is eager to embrace it.

“We have a talented bunch of girls, so the expectations should be really nice and very high,” she said. “I just hope that we can all focus, stay together and get the stick (baton) around as quickly as possible.”

Robinson is expected to join the relay pool that will feature veteran ‘golden girls’ Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and Chandra Sturrup and rising young stars Sheniqua ‘Q’ Ferguson and Anthonique Strachan - just competing off a double gold medal performance at the IAAF World Junior Championships in Barcelona, Spain - in addition to quartermiler Christine Amertil.

“This is bigger and at a higher level so there are going to be a lot more challenges,” Robinson projected. “Other teams are running very well, so this experience should be a different one for us as well.”

The goal for Robinson is for the team to do as best as it can and that is to secure a spot in the final and eventually compete for a medal.

Going to her first Olympics, the premier sporting competition in the world, Robinson said there’s really no track and field athlete that she’s eager to meet. But looking at the other sports, she wouldn’t mind hooking up with swim sensation Michael Phelps or New York Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony, who will be suiting up for the United States men’s basketball team.

Home to go through her final workout sessions before she heads to the Bahamas Olympic Committee’s training camp later this week, Robinson said hopefully the trip will give her the confidence that she needs to be in position to compete in an individual event at the next Olympics in 2016.

“I’m just focusing on what I have to do,” she said. “If I get to run the relay, I want to be able to run my leg as fast as I can.”

And if she does that, she hopes it will be good enough to get the Bahamas into the final and eventually back on the medal podium.