Athletics: Jamaican rising star Gary Card’s endless hunger to be the best
Influences, aspirations and hidden passions
Set to join the likes of Seville and Thompson in the senior ranks next season, Card is excited to be a part of Jamaica’s next great sprinting generation. Training and competing alongside that sort of talent, it’s also why he has no plans to leave the island in the near future.
“I’m the type of person where once I’m at somewhere, unless I’m forced out, I just trust the program that I’m with long-term,” he stated, shutting down any talk about moving to the United States to compete on the highly competitive collegiate circuit.
There’s also the deep sense of gratitude he felt towards his late coach, Stephen Francis – an influential personality who transformed Jamaica into a sprinting powerhouse.
“He basically laid the pathway for me to do so good this season,” Card said of Francis, who also guided the likes of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson-Herah, Asafa Powell and Shericka Jackson. “Everything I did at the [U20] championship was for him.”
There’s also his father, who Card credits for “modeling me to be a man from when I was young,” making it even harder to part with the land that molded him – one he hopes to represent at either the Olympic Games LA 2028 or Brisbane 2032.
“I try to do my own style of running, because I’m nowhere near his level yet,” he explained, when the inevitable comparison to eight-time Olympic champion Bolt was made. “But I wish to be someday. So it’s nice that some people think I will be like him.”
Describing himself as a “boring person” off the track, the teenage sprinter is clear that he wants to dominate his rivals on it, as well as in the virtual world he frequently retreats into when there’s a lull in training or competition.
“I don’t like to lose at anything,” Card admitted. “I like to win at games or [by] running on the track.” At the moment, “games” are mostly limited to basketball sim NBA2k and Epic Games’ Fortnite, which he supposedly became “king of the hill” at in Eugene.
“It’s a very relaxing thing to me, games and track. It takes away, what to me, is the basic kind of stress of the world. So if I’m not training or not in school, I’m playing games.”
What else would anybody expect from the fast-rising star, who claims he can’t be satisfied by times, medals and honors?