After an impressive rookie season, Varsity Blues sprinter Khamica Bingham is preparing for the International University Sports Federation (FISU) Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia next month. Bingham, a media/technology major, was named Varsity Blues rookie of the year, and also won the Ken Giles award for Brampton’s amateur athlete of the year.
Rookie Khamica Bingham was part of the Blues' record-breaking women's relay team. PHOTO COURTESY VARSITY BLUES
Bingham describes her first season with the Blues as “one of my best indoor seasons that I have ever had.” The Blues rookie achieved individual success as well as success as a member of the 4×200-metre relay team. “I managed to run a personal best in the 60-metre with 7.41s, which is really close to my goal of running a 7.3. I was also the first leg for the 4×200-metre relay team, splitting a time of 23.9s. The team was able to break numerous records with a time of 1:36.53.”
Bingham attends UTM, lives in Brampton, and trains downtown, all of which make it difficult to manage school and training. But she has learned to balance her commitments. “The varsity experience is a new experience, but I am really enjoying it,” she says. “My coaches Bob and Carl look after me and make me feel [like] part of [the] varsity [environment]. They do a good job keeping me healthy and motivated.”
But the track was not where Bingham made her athletic debut: the Blues running star started gymnastics at the age of nine, and by age fourteen she was competing at the national level. “My dad motivated me [to compete] in sports and taught me stuff at home,” she says of her history as an athlete. A third-place finish in the all-around at the gymnastics national qualifiers allowed her to compete at the national competition.. Despite competing with an injury, she was able to finish in second place on vault.
In grade six, Bingham won the 100-metre sprint against all of her classmates and was urged by her gym teachers to join the Herb Campbell track and field team. She later went on to win the 100-metre against all of the grade six and seven students who she competed against.
“My dad and I knew that I was pretty fast, but just chose to focus on gymnastics,” she said. After quitting gymnastics at the age of fourteen, she joined the Brampton Track Club in September 2010. “I always secretly wanted to do track and field,” Bingham explains. “I [have] always been really powerful and knew that I had some speed from the training in gymnastics.”
Although Kazan will be her first international competition as a senior, she competed at the World Youth Championships in Lille, France, finishing fifth overall in the 100-metre race. She describes this as “a great stepping stone to help prepare me for the Canadian team that I made the following year for World Juniors Championships.”
Although she was competing with a knee injury at the World Juniors, Bingham finished fifth in the 100-metre with a personal best time of 11.46, missing third place by only one hundredth of a second.
Bingham is very proud of how the indoor season ended, and is excited about going to Kazan — mostly for the experience of running against the fastest girls from all over the world. “It will be in a new environment that I have never been in before,” she says.
Her goal for the Universiade is to make the 100-metre final, and if she does attain this goal, the focus will shift to winning a medal. “I usually don’t have high expectations [of] myself, but the fact that I’m an ‘underdog’ going [into] the meet pushes me to run faster,” she says. Bingham will be joined in Russia by Blues teammates Alicia Brown and Sarah Wells.
Bingham’s goal for the upcoming Blues season is to improve her 60-metre time to 7.3s. She is also hoping that the 4×200-metre relay team can continue their strong record from this season.
Ultimately, Bingham is training for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and hopes to also make the national team that will head to the 2020 Olympics. “Just to be at the Olympics would be amazing,” she said, “but I would … appreciate [the experience even more] if I were to make an Olympic final, or possibly medal at the Olympic Games.”
