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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 19 > Entry
COLUMN: Dayton’s Olympic Family
Over the past two months, Maurice Wignall has competed in the Netherlands, Qatar, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Germany and Jamaica.
Next week, the two-time Olympic hurdler, will leave for meets in Monaco, then Sweden and finally end up in Germany, where he’ll train for a week in Nuremberg with his Jamaican teammates, and then head to Berlin for the world track and field championships.
His wife, Janelle, herself a well-travelled, two-time Olympic swimmer and now an assistant swim coach at Wright State, leaves next week for Rome, where she will coach the Jamaican swimmers at the world championships.
So with their passports covered with more ink than a tattooed biker gang, where’s their favorite stop?
“Right here,” Maurice said as he and Janelle sat on their patio by the backyard swimming pool at their Washington Township home.
“When I’m travelling my sleep cycle gets all messed up,” Maurice said. “I bet I didn’t have one good night’s sleep from May until early this month….when I got back home.”
The Wignalls grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. Both were All Americans — Janelle at the University of Florida, Maurice at George Mason. Before moving here in 2007, they lived in Washington D.C.
“We’re more comfortable here than any of the other places we’ve been,” said Maurice.
Janelle nodded: “People here have been like a breath of fresh air.”
Maurice laughed: “One strange thing. We apparently speak with an accent. I say…apparently. But it’s not that difficult for Ohioans to understand us. Whereas in Florida or New York, we have to repeat ourselves…Maybe it’s the people here take time to listen.”
The best thing about being here, he said, is being with their two-year-son Max, who was out there in the backyard the other day, wearing swimming trunks and inflatable floaties around his arms, while practicing his dad’s burst from the starting blocks.
“He likes to pretend to be his dad,” Janelle smiled. “He’ll get down in a little squat and wait to hear ‘on your mark, ready, set, go.’ Then he’ll just run and run.”
Maurice is doing the same and, this year he’s doing it better than than last season when he made it to the finals of the 110 meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics. He recently won the hurdles event at the Jamaica trials and he just had two strong meets in Spain.
“I never thought this long into the game — at age 33 — I’d still be a contender, but I am,” he said. “I really feel good about this year.”
Yet whenever he can, he slips home from the international circuit. And so one Sunday in May, he landed at Dayton’s airport two hours before his son’s backyard birthday party.
After Beijing — even though he’d turn right around for a meet in Shanghai — he came back to Dayton. That also meant skipping a week-long party back in Jamaica as the nation honored its Olympians.
“Here, there wasn’t a lot of fuss,” he smiled. “About the only mention was one day when I was out mowing our lawn. One of the neighbors stopped and said, ‘I watched you on TV. You did well.” And I said ‘thank you.’”
And that was good enough.
He was home.
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