Athletics-World champion Jackson can finally watch Olympic video nasty

With a 200 metres World Championships gold medal safely pocketed via the second-fastest time in history, Jamaican Shericka Jackson is at the peak of her career and says she will now allow herself to watch a video of her lowest moment.

With a 200 meters World Championships gold medal safely pocketed for the second-fastest time in history, Jamaican Shericka Jackson is at the peak of her career and says she will now allow herself to watch a video of her lowest moment. Jackson was the dominant force in Thursday's high-quality final, forging clear on the straight to win in 21.45 seconds, ahead of compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Briton Dina Asher-Smith.

Her time is second only to the late American Florence Griffith-Joyner's 21.34 from 1988 on the all-time list. At 28 Jackson was already hugely decorated, with global relay golds and a host of silver and bronzes, but Thursday's success not only secured that coveted first individual title but will go some way to erasing the pain and embarrassment of the Tokyo Olympics.

With a 100m bronze in her bag, Jackson went into the 200m first-round heats as the third fastest in the field and with high hopes of another medal, possibly gold. However, easing up too soon and too much, she almost came to a stop at the line, as Italy's Dalia Kaddari slipped four-thousandths of a second in front of her to snatch the third automatic qualifying slot, with the Jamaican's time not good enough to take one of the fastest loser's slots. "Finally, I can go watch the video of the Olympic Games heats - I've never watched it," Jackson told Reuters. "I wanted to clear my mind mentally, not think it might happen again. I just wanted to get past this.

"So now that I am world champion and I've bounced back from whatever I've been to, I can say 'OK, then finally now I can go watch it'." She might also dig out footage of Griffith-Joyner's Seoul Olympic exploits from six years before the Jamaican was born.

She will see victories of eye-watering margins in times that have been out of reach in the decades since, though the dark cloud of doping suspicion continues to hang over her performances. Griffith-Joyner died aged 38. Helped by improved carbon spikes and track technology, Jackson is now within just over a 10th of a second of that 200m record but says chasing it is not part of her plan.

"I don't think about it and I'm not targeting it," she said. "I'm really happy and excited to have got a national record and championship record today but my coach always says 'great execution will bring fast times'. "When you go in a race with time in your head, when you don't meet those expectations, you end up disappointing yourself, and sometimes your disappointment is hard to come back from.

"I don't want to have that. Whenever I'm competing I want to have a free mind."

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