Peta-Gaye Dowdie traveled around the world to find personal growth, fulfillment and the experience of a lifetime
By Fred J. Demarest
LSU Sports Information
Staring across an empty track at the end of the world, Peta-Gaye Dowdie made a promise to herself.
The year was 1996 and the site was Sydney, Australia and the World Junior Track and Field Championships. Inspired by watching the drama of the recently completed Atlanta Olympics unfold on television, Dowdie reminded herself that the next Summer Olympic Games would be right here in Sydney in just four years. But next time she wouldn’t be watching on television, she would be there in person, on the track representing her native Jamaica.
Three years later, the Sydney games are still a year away, but after an incredible journey in 1999, Dowdie is well on her way to making her promise come true.
After a tremendous junior season that saw her win the NCAA Indoor 200-meter title and earn four All-American honors, Dowdie embarked on the kind of summer a student-athlete rarely, if ever, gets the opportunity to experience. She competed in four countries, won a national title and three international medals, most notably a Bronze Medal at the World Championships of Track and Field as the anchor of the Jamaican 4×100 meter relay team.
Less than two weeks after helping the Lady Tiger track and field team to a fifth place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Boise, Idaho in early June, Dowdie boarded a plane and returned home to Jamaica for her country’s national championships. It was there that she made the breakthrough of a lifetime.
Much like the United States, Jamaica is a country rich is talented sprinters, none more successful on the international stage than Merlene Ottey, a perennial Olympian and medalist. A participant in every Olympics since Moscow in 1980, Ottey is a folk hero in Jamaica, viewed in her country much like Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth are in the United States.
With Ottey in the twilight of her career, Dowdie has felt the pressure of a nation for several years now, viewed as the most likely successor to a legend.
Dowdie began her remarkable summer by beating the former World Champion and winning the Jamaican 100-meter title, clocking a blazing time of 11.14 seconds, handing Ottey her first defeat at 100 meters on Jamaican soil in more than a decade. As a result of her victory, Dowdie earned an automatic berth in the 100-meter field at the World Championships.
“People have pointed at me to take Merlene’s spot on the international stage for a couple of years now and that’s a lot of pressure to put on someone,” says the soft-spoken Dowdie. “Hearing people say that and actually beating Merlene are two different things. That was a big breakthrough for me because all of a sudden I thought to myself, ‘I can compete with some of the world’s best sprinters.’ ”
Ordinarily, Dowdie’s season would have been over and she would have gone to summer school and then started up with training again in the fall. But after making the Jamaican national team, her summer was only beginning.
Shortly after winning the Jamaican title, she returned to the United States, enrolled in summer school and competed at international meets on weekends as part of her training for the Jamaican national team.
One week she went to class from Monday through Wednesday, finished class Wednesday afternoon and boarded a plane to Paris that evening. After arriving in France on Thurday, she trained on Friday, competed at a meet in St. Denis on Saturday where she beat two-time defending 100-meter Olympic Gold Medalist Gail Devers, then flew back to the United States on Sunday and was in class on Monday.
Two weeks later she was back in France competing in the 100-meter field at a Grand Prix event in Nice.
“It was unbelievable to go back and forth between Baton Rouge and Europe, but it was the experience of a lifetime, track and field is such a big sport in Europe,” says Dowdie.
It was an introduction to the European track and field scene that she had heard about her entire life. Accustomed to competing in front of sparse crowds in the United States, Dowdie marveled at the support of the sport across the Atlantic. Going to a European track and field meet is much like going to an NFL or NBA game in the United States, as crowds are large and vociferous and tickets are very often hard to come by.
After returning to Baton Rouge and finishing summer classes, Dowdie traveled to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in late July and represented Jamaica at the Pan American Games. There she won a Bronze Medal in the 100-meter dash and ran a leg of the Gold Medal-winning 4×100 meter relay team.
Opting to give her body a rest, she passed on competing at a Grand Prix event in Zurich, Switzerland and stayed away from the track until heading to Seville, Spain for the World Championships in late August, her third and final trip to Europe over the summer.
At the biggest event in her sport, Olympics aside, she made the quarterfinals of the 100-meter dash and later anchored the Jamaican 4×100 meter relay team to the Bronze Medal, holding off American anchor Gail Devers and keeping the United States team off the medal podium.
“Having the experience of competing at a World Championship will help me in preparing for my senior season here and preparing to try and make the Olympics next summer,” says Dowdie. “I think I will be a lot more relaxed on the track this year and be able to have a lot more fun. This summer taught me what I need to do to compete with the best athletes in the world and it will be a summer I will always remember.”