‘I AM 100 PER CENT JAMAICAN!’ — CAMERON
Switching allegiance from US sweetest feeling, says thrower Cameron
LLOYDRICIA Cameron knew from the first time she saw Jamaicans competing in an international track and field competition that she wanted to wear the black, green and gold of the country of her parents.
It was at the Pan American Juniors in Edmonton, Canada in 2015 that the Miami-born 25-year-old, who was competing for the USA, saw the Jamaicans and told her mother she wanted to switch allegiance.
Cameron, who was second in the women’s shot put at last weekend’s Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Ministry of Sports/ Supreme Ventures National Senior Championships at National Stadium, is headed to the Tokyo Olympic Games later this month.
She has worn the Jamaican colours before when she placed seventh in the shot put at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, in 2019, three months after she was cleared to represent Jamaica, but said she is “very excited” to be going to the Olympic Games.
“Today, I finished second with 18.06m, not my best,” she said in her first interview with Jamaican media. “But I am confident that I will make it to the Olympics.”
Cameron, who attended the University of Florida where she trained under Steve Lemke, said it was an easy decision to represent
Jamaica.
“I am 100 per cent Jamaican, from I came out of my mother’s womb. I have always visited here [Jamaica], all my family are Jamaicans... I don’t have any US blood in my body and I am the first generation in my family to be born there and I just love the culture here,” she noted.
Cameron shared the story of seeing Jamaicans at the Pan Am Juniors in 2015.
“I saw the Jamaicans and I told my mother, ‘Oh my God, Jamaica is here, I wish that I can throw for them’. We then got in touch with someone who said it was possible to make the switch and from then on we started the process to make the switch,” she recalled.
At the Pan Am Juniors, Cameron was second in the discus throw, beating Jamaica’s Shanice Love who will be her teammate at the Olympics.
After a tough past few years, Cameron, whose mother Virginia Walcott ran track for Mt Alvernia High School, said she is hoping to get to the final of the shot put at the Olympics.
“I was a little behind the last few years because of an injury, but this year I am back to full health and the focus is to just try and execute at every meet that I participate at,” she said.
“In the three years prior to this, I might have competed at maybe five meets so there are lot of things that I have gone through but I had to fight my way through them, but I have good support behind me,” Cameron added.
qualifying criteria ahead of time and although I’m extremely disappointed and don’t agree with it, we have to accept it this time round and move on.
“It’s just tough because we have two athletes who are of Olympic calibre in terms of individual performance, but they couldn’t achieve what was required and as a result we have no representation at the Games.”
Smith competed at the three previous Olympics and at 36 was hoping to have one final crack at a medal, but his dream was not fulfilled.
Duffy, 33, is hoping to bring home Bermuda’s second Olympic medal after heavyweight boxer Clarence Hill won bronze in the 1976 Montreal Games.