A time for new heroes
THE JAMAICAN team that bows into action tomorrow at the 17th IAAF World Championships isn’t quite what we’re used to. Sure, there are some familiar names like Fedrick Dacres, ShellyAnn Fraser Pryce, Shericka Jackson, Omar McLeod and Elaine Thompson at the top of the team list, but some good soldiers are gone.
The retirement of Usain Bolt, Kerron Stewart, Michael Frater and Novlene Williams-Mills is one thing. The other thing that leaves some fans cold is the end of the golden era of Jamaican male sprinting. Everywhere I turn, I meet a national desire to play back the videos of Bolt, Yohan Blake, Nesta Carter, Asafa Powell and Warren Weir rampaging at breakneck speed. Though Blake is still around and has an outside shot at a medal in the 100 metres, fans still long for the good old days.
Those days are gone. In their place is a men’s team with McLeod leading the line-up and with Dacres and Tajay Gayle close to medals in the discus and the long jump. They are the new male heroes of Jamaica’s track and field. Moreover, when black-greenand-gold sprinting is back in top gear, the hurdles and field events will give Jamaica a chance to surpass its existing record medal haul of 13, with seven gold, in Berlin at the 2009 World Championships.
LOOKING FORWARD
It’s time to stop moping about what we used to have and to treasure what we have now. When the World Championships end in Doha, Qatar, on October 6, we can redouble our efforts to bring forth a new breed of super sprinters. In some ways, they are already on the conveyor belt. The boys who broke Blake’s Jamaican highschool records, Raheem Chambers and Jhevaughn Minzie, are both in harness at the University of Miami and the MVP Track Club, respectively. Beyond that, Oblique Seville, Waseem Williams, Michael Stephens, Tyreke Wilson, Jhevaughn Matherson and Sachin Dennis all have the potential for greatness.
Williams might be a man to watch. He was a 2013 World under-18 100 metres finalist during his days at Jamaica College and this year, while a student athlete at Purdue University, he won the NACAC under-23 gold medal. He and the fast-starting Chambers, the runner-up in the 2018 NCAA Indoor 60 metres, will surely dip under 10 seconds soon.
Seville twice ran 10.13 seconds before his move from Calabar to the Racers Track Club and, hopefully, that great unit will work its magic again with him and 2018 World under-20 100 metres finalist Stephens.
In the meantime, and especially during these World Championships, fans will most likely see Jamaican men excel in non-sprints. McLeod may be back in form just in time to defend the title he won in 2017. Dacres and Gayle have operated like medal candidates in the discus and the long jump all season. If they carry on like that, they should both stand on the podium. Spare an extra thought for Dacres. He owes himself a medal after a fourt- place finish in 2017. His big win to defend his Pan American Games title in July makes Doha the logical next step.
Solid entrants will go to the line in the men’s 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles and from those two events, the coaches could pick a solid 4x400 metres relay team. Unbroken sprint success would be wonderful, but decades of hard work has given Jamaican athletics something else: a field events team that will soon match the best anywhere in the world.