Thursday, July 31, 2008
Return engagement for local shot putter
The Olympic experience never gets old for Cleopatra Borel-Brown.
Photos by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times
Cleopatra Borel-Brown, who works as an administrative assistant in the Va. Tech track and field office, will compete in the shot put at next month's Beijing Olympics.
Trinidad and Tobago shot-putter Cleopatra Borel-Brown trains with Virginia Tech throws coach Greg Jack.
Other foreign standouts
Other athletes with ties to area colleges who will compete for foreign countries in Beijing:Virginia Tech
- Ieva Kublina (ex-Hokie): women’s basketball, Latvia Third-leading scorer in Tech history.
- Kaan Tayla (ex-Hokie): men’s swimming, Turkey Won ACC titles in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle as a senior this year. Will swim 50-meter freestyle in his second Olympics.
Virginia
- Melanie Kok (ex-Cav): rowing, Canada Former All-American.
- Vanja Rogulj (ex-Cav): men’s swimming, Croatia Former All-American will swim the 100 breaststroke and 400 medley relay in his third Olympics.
- Ruby Rojas (ex-Cav): softball, Venezuela Former ACC rookie of the year.
- Erika Stewart (recruit): swimming, Colombia Durham, N.C., native with dual citizenship will swim in the 200 individual medley.
Radford
- Goran Nava (ex-Highlander): track, Serbia Grew up in Italy but will run the 1,500 meters for his mother’s native country.
BLACKSBURG -- Cleopatra Borel-Brown has fond Olympic memories.
Soon she will make some more.
Borel-Brown, who has been part of the Virginia Tech track and field staff for six years, will compete in the shot put on Aug. 15 in Beijing for her country, Trinidad and Tobago.
She finished 10th at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.
"I'm excited to go to the Olympics, but I'm even more excited by the fact that I made it through the last four years," she said after a practice at Tech. "It's not always easy making it from one Olympics to the next. It's difficult to maintain the level with the goal being that far away -- staying injury-free, staying motivated sometimes when it's not going well, staying motivated when you're not making money doing it."
Borel-Brown, 29, is a Tech graduate student. She spent four years as a Hokies volunteer assistant coach before assuming her current, paying job as an administrative assistant in the track office.
The Christiansburg resident is looking forward to the opening ceremonies on Aug. 8. She knows from her 2004 experience how "spectacular" they will be.
Even her time waiting in an Athens arena for the ceremonies to begin at Olympic Stadium was memorable.
"Athletes are singing songs and playing music," she recalled. "You meet people from different teams and we exchange pins.
"The excitement builds. Then you go out there [to the stadium], and you've watched in on TV so many times before, and now you're actually there, a part of it. It just hits you at that time: 'Hey, I'm at the Olympics.'"
Borel-Brown also got a kick out of spotting famous athletes in the Olympic Village, such as Yao Ming.
"In the computer lab, he was always there. It was so strange because you think, 'Here's this big NBA star and he doesn't have his own computer,'" she said with a laugh. "One time I saw him, he almost got hit by the bus."
At the 2004 Olympics, Borel-Brown had a throw of 62 feet to earn a spot in the 12-woman finals. She threw 60 feet, 2 inches in the finals to finish 11th, although her place was later moved up a notch after the winner was disqualified for flunking a drug test.
Her event was held not in Athens but in Ancient Olympia, the site that gave birth to the Olympics. As soon as the finals ended, her then-boyfriend, Balvin Brown, proposed right in the middle of the field.
"She didn't come home with any medals, but at least she came home with a diamond," he said.
They married three years ago.
"He's very supportive," she said. "He doesn't get bored at track meets."
Borel-Brown grew up in Mayaro, a fishing village on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. Trinidad and Tobago is a nation of about 1 million people; the two islands combined are about the size of Delaware. Her nation's government sends money to support her.
"I feel really tied to Trinidad because I visit there so frequently," she said. "It's just who I am. It's just so deep inside of me. I miss it a lot."
Borel-Brown left Trinidad to attend Coppin State in Baltimore. When her coach left after her sophomore year, Borel-Brown transferred to Maryland-Baltimore County. She went on to win the shot put at the 2002 NCAA indoor championships.
A major reason she opted for UMBC was because Brown was a thrower on the men's team there. They had been dating since meeting at a track meet.
Borel-Brown, who is 5-foot-7 and 220 pounds, can bench-press 300 pounds.
"She's in the best shape of her life," said Tech throws coach Greg Jack, who tutors Borel-Brown. "She's tremendously fit for 220 pounds."
Borel-Brown is able to take time off from her Tech job to compete in meets around the world. Either she pays her own expenses, or her country or the meet picks up the tab.
Last year, she won the bronze medal at the Pan American Games and had a throw of 62-0 at a meet at the Netherlands.
In March, she finished seventh at the World Indoor Championships in Spain with a throw of 60-7. This month she won gold at the Central American and Caribbean Championships in Colombia and had a throw of 61-10 at a meet in Sweden.
"We're peaking at the right time," Jack said.
