KINGSTON–Emerg­ing sprint star Ja­maica's Elaine Thomp­son, says hard work has paid off al­low­ing her to be­come the world's lead­ing sprint­er fol­low­ing two re­cent 100 me­tre wins.Thomp­son an­nounced her­self to the world by speed­ing to vic­to­ry in 10.97 sec­onds at the Ja­maica In­vi­ta­tion­al on Sat­ur­day af­ter clock­ing a world lead­ing 10.92 sec­onds at the Utech Clas­sics a few weeks ago.

"No, not easy. It's been months and days of train­ing, so it is the hard work that is pay­ing off now. I start­ed train­ing late Sep­tem­ber," said Thomp­son."I train with Shelly-Ann Fras­er-Pryce; she helps to mo­ti­vate me a lot".On Sat­ur­day, the 22-year-old Ja­maican sprint­er re­cov­ered from a slow start to lead Com­mon­wealth Games cham­pi­on Bless­ing Ok­ag­bare of Nige­ria and Amer­i­can star Allyson Fe­lix at the half-way mark be­fore pulling away for a com­fort­able win.

"I was feel­ing good, I know I could win so I just go out there to ex­e­cute as best as I could. It wasn't one of the best starts, but I just didn't pan­ic, I just went on and ex­e­cut­ed," said Thomp­son who turns 23 next month."I knew the names in the field were big, so I just didn't try to get ner­vous. I just went out there and de­liv­ered."

Thomp­son has cred­it­ed her im­prove­ment to Stephen Fran­cis, coach of MVP track club.She has now set her sights on a medal at the World Cham­pi­onship, which will be held at the Bird's Nest Sta­di­um in Bei­jing, Chi­na, in Au­gust."I see my­self on that medal podi­um in Bei­jing," said Thomp­son.

"All I need to do now is to put in a lit­tle more ex­tra work and just do the things I nor­mal­ly do, noth­ing new, just some more work".

CMC