Ten­nille Al­leyne

Ayan­na Alexan­der is one of Trinidad and To­ba­go's pre­miere track and field ath­letes, spe­cial­is­ing in the triple jump. En­cour­aged by her broth­er Keino who saw her po­ten­tial at age 13, Ayan­na has con­tin­ued to per­se­vere, reap­ing many re­wards of her hard work.To date, some of her achieve­ments in­clude 2010 Com­mon­wealth Games Sil­ver Medal­ist, 2010 CAC Games Bronze Medal­ist, five-time Trinidad & To­ba­go Na­tion­al Cham­pi­on, Trinidad & To­ba­go Na­tion­al In­door and Out­door Triple Jump record hold­er. While set­ting a new Out­door Na­tion­al Record of 13.98 sec­onds at the Hamp­ton Games in Trinidad, Ayan­na con­tin­ues to train with all in­ten­tions of rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go at the 2012 Olympics in Lon­don.

You set the new out­door record of 13.98 at the Ju­ly Hamp­ton Games in Trinidad, beat­ing your pre­vi­ous score of 13.96... what was your re­ac­tion?

I knew that it was go­ing to hap­pen. I wasn't sur­prised or shocked be­cause I know that I work hard.

When you com­pete, is break­ing records at the fore­front of your mind?

When I com­pete I don't usu­al­ly think about any­thing oth­er than run­ning through the TJ board and be­ing ag­gres­sive through my phas­es. Oh, and jump­ing out the pit!

What runs through your mind just be­fore you jump?

Lord let me glo­ri­fy you with this gift you have giv­en me.

You did not qual­i­fy for the 2008 Olympics be­cause you missed the qual­i­fy­ing mark by rough­ly 6 inch­es, how did that im­pact on you?

It was a bit painful, but I bounced back. I was so close and had sev­er­al PB's through­out the year but still didn't make it. I was hun­gry to bet­ter my­self. So I pushed hard­er and con­tin­ued to work hard be­cause I knew next time by God's grace I will make it. It was al­so tough be­cause I was coach­ing my­self when I grad­u­at­ed from col­lege and I was search­ing for a coach and train­ing group so in the be­gin­ning of 2008 I took what ever mon­ey I had, packed up my car and drove 25 hours to Ba­ton Rouge Louisiana to be coached by one of the best jump coach­es in the world, Coach Boo. That ex­pe­ri­ence, changed my life.

Are you do­ing any­thing dif­fer­ent­ly this time around to qual­i­fy for the 2012 Olympics next year?

YES, I am! This time around I am a part of the elite fund­ing pro­gram which is car­ried out by the Min­istry of Sports and Youth af­fairs. It helps take care of the ne­ces­si­ties that I need to get pre­pared for mi­nor com­pe­ti­tions and ma­jor com­pe­ti­tions. With fund­ing I can work less and fo­cus more on ath­let­ics and get the prop­er med­ical at­ten­tion I need to main­tain my body. I have a coach this time around and no longer coach my­self. I've been work­ing on my strength and tech­nique and it helps to have some­one around to cor­rect me and my form con­stant­ly.

Em­manuel "Skeeter" Jack­son has been your coach for the past two years, de­scribe your re­la­tion­ship with him?

My coach is one of the best coach­es I have ever known. He used to be a world class jumper in his day and has lead George Ma­son Men to be­come NCAA cham­pi­ons in 1998. He was al­so a phe­nom­e­nal base­ball play­er. He is like my sec­ond dad to me. He sees me when I'm up, down, strug­gling through a work­out and when I'm at my best. He mo­ti­vates me and chal­lenges me be­cause he knows how great I'm go­ing to be.

Would your per­for­mance at the World Cham­pi­onship games be in­dica­tive of what you will be ca­pa­ble of at the Olympics?

In a way it is. I'm work­ing on hit­ting my Olympic qual­i­fy­ing mark. I've been im­prov­ing and I an­tic­i­pate hit­ting my stan­dard soon.

In 2010, you sprained your an­kle af­ter set­ting the Na­tion­al In­door Record of 13.99. How has that in­jury im­ped­ed your train­ing and do you think you are at a dis­ad­van­tage?

I think it im­ped­ed a good deal. Any ath­lete who has suf­fered an in­jury gets a lit­tle frus­trat­ed, some more than oth­ers. But I used my wait­ing time to pre­pare my­self men­tal­ly. I re­alised that my in­jury was an ob­sta­cle that would be gone soon. Even though it took me 10 months to fi­nal­ly bounce back, I was anx­ious­ly wait­ing for the mo­ment where I can com­pete pain free.

You are cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing an MBA and Mas­ters in Hu­man Re­sources at Mary Mount Uni­ver­si­ty ...how do you bal­ance acad­e­mia and sport?

It's tough at times, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter com­plet­ing a tough work­out. I have to muster up the en­er­gy to do my school work and read­ings. It is dif­fi­cult but I'm up for the chal­lenge.

How im­por­tant has it been for you to pur­sue acad­e­mia even though you are a suc­cess­ful pro ath­lete?

It is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant. I have to be a well round­ed in­di­vid­ual. I have goals and as­pi­ra­tions on and off the track. I am just as com­pet­i­tive in my aca­d­e­mics as I am on the track. I take my aca­d­e­mics very se­ri­ous­ly and I am of­ten hard on my­self at times.

Do you think you have re­ceived enough sup­port from your home coun­try as a Trinidad and To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive?

You can nev­er have too much sup­port.

Who are your role mod­els on and off the field?

My mom def­i­nite­ly is be­cause she is my back­bone and al­so my fam­i­ly. On the field, ath­let­i­cal­ly speak­ing, I have al­ways been fas­ci­nat­ed with Jonathon Ed­wards since he is one of the great­est that has ever done it... he has al­ways been good at ex­e­cut­ing his speed and tech­nique.

You are 29 present­ly, how many years do you be­lieve you have again in track and field?

I am grate­ful for the gifts God has blessed me with and I will con­tin­ue to jump as long as he gives me strength to.

What would you like to do af­ter you re­tire?

Af­ter my ath­let­ic ca­reer, I plan on giv­ing back to Track and Field and my coun­try by teach­ing the next gen­er­a­tion the art of triple Jump. At that time I will be fin­ish­ing or have com­plet­ed my doc­tor­al pro­gram in Be­hav­ioral Neu­ro­science.

What does Ayan­na Alexan­der do in her free time?

I like to de­sign clothes and I love fash­ion. I al­so like to eat dif­fer­ent types of food. I like to cook and spend time with my friends and fam­i­ly.

You are a role mod­el, es­pe­cial­ly for those as­pir­ing in your dis­ci­pline. Any ad­vice?

Nev­er give up!! Hard work al­ways pays off. There were many times when things were not in my fa­vor, but through prayer, my be­lief in God, hard work and per­se­ver­ance I made it through every storm.... Peo­ple may doubt you but al­ways be­lieve in your­self no mat­ter what the sit­u­a­tion may look like! When you have a vi­sion stick with it and be care­ful who you share your dreams with be­cause not every­one will be­lieve in it as much as you do. Stay away from neg­a­tiv­i­ty and neg­a­tive peo­ple, they will bring you down.... Al­ways be­lieve in your self, no mat­ter what!!