Forbes ready to get back on track in Rio

By Cayman Sports Buzz
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Updated: 10 August 2016

National 110m hurdles record holder, Ronald Forbes, is confident he’ll return to prime form under the Olympic spotlight in Rio de Janeiro.

Forbes had been in sublime form this year after an administrative mishap prevented him from representing the Cayman Islands at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in March. But he was sidelined with a leg injury that kept him out of competition in the months leading up to the Olympic Games.

“I was very fortunate that the injury was not worse than it was. It seemed very bleak at one point because I thought that was going to be the end of it for me. Fortunately for me, I had great medical acquaintances that got me back to the point that I am,” he said in an interview with CaymanSportsBuzz.com.

“I’m just fortunate that it wasn’t an injury that cost me my career and I look forward to representing the Cayman Islands in the Rio Olympics and on into the future,” he added.

Forbes, 31, is representing the Cayman Islands at the Olympics for a third time.

Forbes, 31, said the opportunity to represent his country at the Olympics means everything to him.

“It was mind-boggling that I would ever make it to the Olympics in the first place and now being at the age I am and having the number of places that I’ve gone to represent the Cayman Islands over the years, I’m on to my third Olympics,” said the North Sider, who competed in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012.

“It’s a very great feeling that I’m not [just] going to one or two, but three Olympics – some people never get to one Olympics. I know some people who have been medalists in 2008 and have never made their team ever since and it’s a tremendous feeling to go out there, not representing myself alone but most importantly, the Cayman Islands.”

Forbes established a new national mark in the 110m hurdles on 30 April in Clermont, Florida with a time of 13.36 seconds, the highlight of a good season on the track.

While he won’t share the specifics for competitive reasons, the 2015 Island Games gold medalist, said he and his coaching team found their “eureka moment” that resulted in the best times of his career.

“For the first time, I’ve been able to precisely do the warm up I need and do exactly what I need to allow me to run that fast without having to play this great amount of guess work. We’ve figured that out this year and it came along at the right time. Going into [the] indoor [season] we were still playing the guessing game because you figure your body out year-by-year and this year we figured that out,” he said.

Forbes was the Cayman Islands flag bearer at the opening ceremony.

The Florida International University graduate goes under the starter’s gun in the 110m hurdles on Monday, 15 August, with two of his training partners also qualifying for the event.

“I’m highly focused on what I need to do because of the years of competition and experience under my belt, I know what to expect and who to expect it from,” he told CaymanSportsBuzz.com.

“My goal is to go out there and execute. I can only take care of what happens in my lane in my race. My goal always is to execute the best race possible with expectations of coming out and achieving a personal best. A personal best is truly a representation that I took my body from somewhere that it was to somewhere it’s never been…and that means the world to me on any stage, whether it’s Rio or at a local track meet anywhere in the world,” Forbes said.