RALEIGH, North Carolina: There will be no 100m joy for Veronica Campbell-Brown at the Beijing Olympics.

The women’s world champion slipped up in June’s Jamaican championships, finishing fourth and failing to qualify for the Games.

There will still be plenty of sprinting for her in Beijing, though, because she defends her 200m title and chases a second 4x100m gold medal.

Veronica Campbell from Jamaica celebrates after winning the women's 100 metres during the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace in London July 26, 2008. [Agencies]

But it has not stopped her from wondering what might have been.

Said the 26-year-old: “I don’t know what happened in the 100m, but I was disappointed. It was just a shocker to me, but it’s just a part of life.

“I just had to bounce back, and make sure that I’m on the Olympic team for an individual race.”

Indeed, she ran a personal best of 21.94sec to qualify for the 200m. That timing was also the fastest time in the world this season.

Furthermore, with all four relay runners clocking under 10.90, it should make the Jamaicans one of the favourites in the 4x100m.

Married to Jamaican sprinter Omar Brown since last year, Campbell-Brown gained international attention as the world youth 100m champion in 1999.

A year later she became the first woman to win world junior titles at 100m and 200m in the same year.

“Merlene Ottey was and is my role model,” she said of the Jamaican sprinter who now represents Slovenia and has won nine Olympic medals.

“Growing up we used people like her as a motivational factor and tried to be like her.”

Campbell-Brown has become one of Jamaica’s most prolific medal winners, despite injuries during the 2001 and 2003 world championship seasons.

From a 4x100m relay silver in the 2000 Sydney Games, to a 100m bronze and golds in the relay and 200m in Athens, she has earned podium positions at each of her Olympics.

Whether this will be her last Olympics will depend on her fitness approaching the 2012 London Games.

She said: “If I think I can get a medal, I will compete in London.”

But first comes Beijing and what should be a tremendous duel with American Allyson Felix, who beat Campbell-Brown for the 2007 world 200m title after finishing second to the Jamaican in Athens.

Agencies