I have been a fan of track and field for as long as I can remember. I wasn't always exposed to it on television because back in the day we used to consider ourselves lucky if we could even get a strong enough signal down there in Trelawny. So no, we never saw much on television, but with the help of Radio Jamaica, The Gleaner, the Daily News and my fertile imagination, it was exciting to visualise Donald Quarrie, Jackie Pusey, Lilieth Hodges and the other Jamaican track icons of the day competing against the best in the world.

I will never forget how excited I was when I read that Quarrie had won the 200-metre sprint in Montreal, after overcoming the disappointment of his shock defeat at the hands of Hasley Crawford a few days earlier. It had seemed like such a sure thing to me that the 100m was his for the taking.

Before then, I had been totally sold that Quarrie was by far the fastest man on the planet, thanks in part to Ernie Smith who sang, "Quarrie was a boy to I man last night, he couldn't follow, he couldn't follow me."