PICTURED: Alvin Haynes enjoyed success as a collegiate athlete but was out of sorts and out of form when he arrived in Barcelona and did not advance from the first round.
IT DIDN’T seem like a big deal at the time.
When Alvin Haynes’ coach, Joe Walker, offered to come to Barbados and continue his training ahead of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games, he declined.
He was only going to be here for a short time anyway, because local officials had promised to send him back to the University of Mississippi after the National Championships.
“I told my coach I would be back in a month or so and we would continue our training. I came back to Barbados competed in National Championships and won the event, only to be told the funds were not there, so they couldn’t send me to my coach to sharpen my skills, I have to stay here,” Haynes said.
“And the coaches out here – I think they were Jerston Clarke and Anthony Jones – they are very good coaches, but they don’t know me. They don’t know Alvin Haynes. They know what Alvin Haynes has done over the past few years.
“My coach was sending routines and workouts for them to go through with me, but what my coach was seeing, they couldn’t see. It was awkward and I lost a lot of my sharpness, a lot of it. Then we were told by the [Amateur Athletic Association] that we are supposed to go up two weeks before, get a meet or two in and sharpen our skills again.
“That didn’t materialize either. We got up there about three days before the [Olympic] Games actually started. Of course, we had to fly from Barbados to London, London to Spain and jet lag was a big part of it. None of us acclimatized. People we were beating early in the year beat us badly at the Olympics because they were there in time to adjust and acclimatize and we weren’t.”
It was a sobering experience for Haynes, who had returned to Barbados feeling on top of the world. He had broken the Barbados national record in the men’s triple jump earlier that season and was riding a wave of all-American success for the third successive year.
“I knew the record was 16.27 [metres], which was Henry Inniss’ at the time. I knew I broke it, but it wasn’t an issue at that time. I was more focused on winning the event than breaking the record.
“After the fact, I said: ‘Oh, shoot, I came fourth but I broke the national record!’,” Haynes said with a smile.
It was ironic, because Inniss had coached him for a few years while he was at the CARIFTA level and had encouraged him to switch to the triple jump, but at that time, Haynes had been excelling in the long jump and high jump.
“Every time he sees me now, he says: ‘I coached you and you broke my record. You are not a good guy at all!’,” he said with a laugh.
That record of 16.70 [metres], which was set at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championships at Duke University in 1992, is still the Barbados national record.
From a shy seven-year-old at St Matthias Primary watching other children run, Haynes was now a national champion and record holder.
The converted sprinter, whose talent was nurtured by the late St Clair Cox at Foundation School and Dover Athletic Club, had moved on to the ultimate competition after winning two golds and a bronze at CARIFTA and a gold at Central American and Caribbean Juniors in the mid-1980s.
Good experience
“The [Olympic] Games itself was an experience. It was kind of awkward at times. People you grew up idolizing you had to compete against – Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell, Mike Conley – the ‘who’s who’ of track and field back in the day,” he said.
Haynes gave himself a pep talk to put all of that aside and prepared to jump.
“My warm-up routine was [as] per usual. Nothing was left out. The run-up was fine, but my body wasn’t there. I was very hyped up about the whole event. It was the Olympics, but my body was just flat,” Haynes recalled.
“I was in very good shape, but I wasn’t sharp. I really wasn’t sharp.”
Jumpers he had beaten in the year, such as silver medallist Charles Simpkins, turned the tables. Haynes’ best leap was 15.93 and he did not reach the next round.
“It was very bittersweet knowing that I could do better. I take part of the blame,” he said with a deep sigh. “I was upset then at the Olympics, but I made it there. Granted, we didn’t do as well as we wanted to but you’re an Olympian. You represented your country at the Olympics.”
Then, there were the comments when he returned.
“Funny enough, talking about it now hurts more than it did shortly after. When I came back to Barbados, people were like: ‘Wait you went to the Olympics, you ain’t do nothing, you ain’t no good’. They don’t know what happened. They don’t know why I didn’t do as well as I was supposed to do.”
By the following year, a promising career was over when Haynes injured his ankle while playing basketball. At that time, he had been training for the 1993 World Championships and a contract with Mizuno – the American sports goods firm – was in the works.
“I was supposed to sign on the Monday and I injured myself on the Friday. I missed out on the World Championships, I missed out on a lucrative contract on the European circuit and guys who weren’t as good as me, they got contracts and went on to make lots of money. That hurt me. That really set me back,” Haynes said.
Track and field remains one of his loves.
Haynes still attends meets at the National Stadium and hopes one day to be able to “give back” to the Foundation School, but his crazy work hours don’t allow it right now.
