New Year, New Coach, New life for Kerron Clement – IAAF Online Diaries
Thursday 10 January 2008
World champion Kerron Clement is the latest addition to the IAAF Online Diaries. From his new home in California, the 22-year-old 400m hurdler updates us on his current track and personal news.
“Happy New Year Everyone!
“Christmas was really good, I spent Christmas and New year’s in Houston, Texas with my family. Although I went to the University of Florida and stayed in Gainesville afterwards I went to Laporte High school in Texas which is twenty minutes outside of Houston. So I went back there for the holidays.
“My entire family was there. I have two older sisters and one of them has a house in Baytown, Texas. We were together as a family. We ate and we sat around and talked about old times, stuff like that. For New Year’s we went to church which is an old tradition for us.
“Basically Los Angeles is my hometown now because I moved here a month ago. I used to live in Gainesville but I switched coaches. I knew who I wanted to go with and that’s Bobby Kersee. He lives in California and it wasn’t a hard decision as to where I was going. So I moved out here.
“I still have a condo in Florida and my mom and sister are still there. But I am looking to buy something in California because I don’t like renting.
“During the Christmas holidays I trained by myself at the University of Houston but Bobby was faxing me the workouts I was doing every day. I had weekends off and Wednesdays too just to rest my legs.
“Now I am back in LA we are training at the UCLA campus I basically started with spikes today. We had been doing longer stuff, 600m’s, 30 minute road runs. Three days ago we started doing hurdles in spikes. We had been doing a lot of over-distance more mileage than in Florida where the most we were doing is 45 seconds runs.
“It’s kind of early to see how the training is going to be different. But I can tell you I am way stronger this year than last year. Every year I feel I am getting stronger and stronger. I am not really sure what Bobby is training me towards, I have to talk to my agent Caroline Feith and my coach to see what we are going to do during indoors.
“Oh my goodness, I am very thrilled about the upcoming Olympics because it is my first one. A lot of people are kind of worried because of the move to California I made but I believe in myself and I believe that Bobby Kersee will help me to win an Olympic title. I am just really excited about it.
“In 2004 I didn’t try out for the Olympics because I was really young, I believe I was 18 or 19. I felt it best to use the World Junior Championships to test the international waters and I did that, and I ran really well and I actually won. I know this time around, in Beijing, it’s my time and I am ready for that.
“My gold medal from Osaka is at home in a vault. I do take it out from time to time to remind myself that hard work pays off and I am running to win gold medals. That's all for now.”
