The Tribune

“GOLDEN Girl” Pauline Davis is eager to relate her true story, depicting her rise from a barefoot girl to an Olympic champion and the struggles that she had to endure along the way.

She signed a deal with US publisher Rowman & Littlefield earlier this week in her bid to bring her remarkable story of resilience, determination and Olympic glory to the world.

“I went through a lot. When I moved home, I saw some things happening and I felt I had to do more,” said Davis about her decision to produce the memoir entitled “The Girl Who Ran Sideways: The Story of an Olympic Champion.”

“I want to encourage our young people to strive for greatness. It doesn’t always have to be in sports and it really doesn’t matter how you start, but how you finish.”

It is being co-written with noted Canadian author T.R. Todd, who recently penned the award-winning book “Pigs of Paradise: The True Story of the World Famous Swimming Pigs”.

With the book now into chapter five, Davis said they have targeted next year to be completed and on the shelves in the bookstores and in the schools for everyone, especially the next generation of athletes, to read.

Having been raised in humble beginnings in Fleming Street in Bain Town, the former LW Young rising star and Government High School superstar recalls how she defied the odds to not only become a double gold medallist, but the first woman from the Caribbean to take home the ultimate Olympic prize.

She indicated that she wants people to understand that if she could excel as one of the most decorated female sprinters of her generation, and the first woman of colour to join the World Athletic Council, the international governing body for track and field (formerly known as the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), they could achieve it too, not just in track and field, but any other sport.

“It’s going to speak truth to power about my life,” said Davis, without going into any further details about the memoir. “There were people who supported me and I call them my angels because I was very grateful for them.

“But I also had several people who were against me. The odds were stacked against me. When I see these young people now, they don’t have the level of strength that we had as athletes back in our day.

“So we can ill afford to put them through what we went through, We have to be very careful of these young people coming through the system. They’re much more gifted and talented than we were, but they are very weaker than us.”

As she reflects on her journey that spanned more than three decades, Davis said she was driven to tears as she realised the sacrifices that she had to endure and that is why she wants to advise the young people from the ghetto that they can make it just like she did.

“I want to say to them that persons like myself did it and they can do it too,” she stressed. “It’s not an impossible task.”

Davis was one of the most prolific competitors as a junior athlete at the CARIFTA Games, winning the Austin Sealy Award as the most outstanding athlete in 1984 here in Nassau.

However, she had her remarkable breakthrough at the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships in 1982 in Barbados where she captured four gold medals in the 100, 200 and 400m as well as the long jump. As the lone ranger, competing on the international scene at the senior level, Davis eventually got some help from Eldece Clarke, Chandra Sturrup, Savatheda Fynes and Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie as they went on to capture silver and gold medals in the 4 x 100m relay at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia and 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, where Davis was also elevated to a gold in the 200m after American Marion Jones was stripped of her title for a doping violation.

The women, who were all coined the “Golden Girls,” also captured the relay gold at the International Amateur Athletic Federation - now World Athletics - World Championships in 1999 in Seville, Spain.

The 54-year-old Davis, now a consultant with the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, said all the extra details of her storied career will be outlined in the book when it is offically released.