Saint Louis University students may have noticed that Chartwells has been serving up some fast food lately. Not fast like Pizza Hut or KFC inside Fusz Hall, but really fast, like Olympic-qualifying fast.
Chartwells employee Jermaine Myers was an alternate on the 2008 Jamaican Olympic track and field team—a team that featured the fastest sprinter of all time, Usain Bolt.
“Usain [Bolt] and I actually share a record. We ran on the 4×400 [meter relay] team in the Jamaican Junior Championships and broke the old one,” Myers said.
Myers, who came to America on a track scholarship, first attended Cowley College, a junior-college in Arkansas City, Kan. He then transferred to McKendree College in nearby Lebanon, Ill.
“That’s how I came to St. Louis, being so close after graduation … I started off temporarily [with Chartwells,] then they gave me the chance to work full-time,” Myers said. “So this is what I am doing for now.”
Myers plans to begin training for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London this summer.
“I have a few things to straighten out here first, but then I will move down to Florida to really get into the preparations and training,” Myers said.
Myers knows that if he wants to make the Olympic team, he will have his work cut out for him.
“With guys like Bolt, sprinting is taken to a whole new level. You have to work as hard as possible to even have a chance at the level,” Myers said. “It’s a lot of work, but I like the challenge.”
Fortunately for Myers, Bolt, the current world-record holder in both the 100 and 200-meter dashes will not be running in either of Myers’ events; the 26-year-old native of Manchester, Jamaica will be competing in both the 400 and 800-meter events.
If Myers wants to compete at a world-class level like his fellow countryman, though, he will have to shave a few seconds off of his times. Myers said that his personal bests in the 400 and 800 are 46.9 seconds and 1:48.00 seconds, respectively. As of right now, the world records in these two events, respectively, are 43.18, set by USA’s Michael Johnson, and 1:41.11, set by Wilson Kipketer of Denmark.
Eventually, Myers would like to go into physical education, but for now he has other things to worry about—like the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, the Olympic trials in 2012 and the lack of ethnic foods on Chartwells’ menu.
“Maybe [Chartwells] should mix some [Jamaican food] into the menu, just to try some different or new things,” Myers said. “You never know what people are going to like, so I think it would be worth a shot.”