The following article has appeared on the Caribbean Tracklife Online Magazine www.caribbeantracklife.com featuring Bermuda’s Own Aaron Evans. Today we bring you part one of the interview done by O'Neil Reid.
Twenty-year-old Aaron Evans has had a very active youth, playing soccer, cricket and basketball. The Devonshire, Bermuda native played basketball at camps run by his father and played on the Bermudian National Under-13 soccer squad that toured Europe, playing in Holland, Germany and Belgium.
But one April night at the 2004 CARIFTA Games in his home country, Aaron witnessed a lanky Jamaican youth demolish both the CARIFTA Games and World Junior 200m records with a scintillating 19.93 secs. That lanky record-breaker was a young Usain “Lighting” Bolt. Aaron also witnessed his friend and countryman Taijuan Talbot capture gold in the Under-17 1500m (4:17.15). These two performances inspired Aaron to take up track and field seriously; one year later, in 2005, he was at the CARIFTA Games in Bacolet, Trinidad competing for Bermuda.
Family
Aaron was born on Jan. 31, 1990 and has one older brother (Ariell). His father, Dr. Freddie Evans, is a middle-school principal in Bermuda and his mother, Gina Evans, is an elementary school vice-principal. His mom, a former 800m All-American runner at Jackson State University, once represented Bermuda at the CARIFTA Games.
“My parents are very supportive and whenever I compete I can hear my father in the stands while my mother gets so nervous. She is more nervous than I am,” he joked.
“I remember my first experience running track; I was at a meet where my brother was competing. I was about 8 years old. The other team was missing a runner so I was asked to fill in. I ran the mile in about 8 minutes, which was impressive at that time,” he recalls.
The Early Years
“While I was at Warwick Academy [from ages 6 to 16] my physical education teacher and football [soccer] coach encouraged me to run track so I ran Cross Country,” he said. At the age of 12, Aaron’s mother enrolled him in the Bermudian Pacers Track Club; so, he was playing both soccer and running track at that tender age. However, Aaron’s two-sport involvement changed after he saw Bolt’s and Talbot’s winning performances. Aaron then embarked on writing his own chapter; at the 2005 CARIFTA Games in Trinidad, he ran the 1500m and the 3000m for Bermuda.
At 16, Aaron left Warwick Academy for Cushing Academy in Massachusetts (USA), where he immediately started participating in Cross Country running. There, he joined two Ethiopian distance runners and together they won two New England Cross Country titles.
By 2007, Aaron was on to something in the 800m and reached the semifinals of that event at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
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