Hall heads to South Plains on scholarship
EDWIN ALLEN High School is about to say goodbye to Chevonne Hall, who took the Class One boys’ 800 metres and 1500 metres at Boys and Girls’ Championships.
Edwin Allen’s coaching expert, Michael Dyke, expects the hardworking Hall to do well at South Plains Junior College in Texas. Dyke says Hall improved a lot in 2021 and believes Jamaica might soon have an Olympic finalist in the men’s 800 metres.
Hall removed a record set by Kimar Farquharson of Calabar High in 2019 with an audacious run of one minute, 48.57 seconds. The 19-year-old Edwin Allen representative zoomed the first lap in 50.4 seconds and held on to win over Rivaldo Marshall and J’Voughnn Blake, who both broke 1.49 as well.
“He is somebody who works very hard and very disciplined towards his training. So his results this year wasn’t surprising at all,” Dyke said in October, as the student-athlete was set to leave Jamaica shortly for Texas.
The coach was happy to see times similar to those clocked in 2019 by Farquharson and Tyrece Taylor.
“I was very pleased to see, you know, we have some youngsters getting back into that realm because, well, it wasn’t too long ago that, it was the year before that, we had the youngster from Calabar running,”Dyke recalled.“So it’s a good sign to see consistency within that time range coming out of Champs.”
Hall, Farquharson, Marshall, Blake and Taylor have made Dyke optimistic about Jamaica’s future in the men’s 800.
“It is still a bit, a way off when you look at what is out there at the international level, you know,” he reasoned.“But the youngsters that we have now, I believe if they are nurtured properly and motivated, who to tell? We might end up with probably an Olympic finalist in the not too long distance from now.”
PERSONAL BEST
Hall’s fine season continued with a time of one minute, 48.73 seconds at the National Championships, and with a personal best – 1.48.50 – at the World Under-20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya on August 21.
“He has a lot of confidence but I was a bit disappointed at the World Juniors because, to be honest, the strategy at Champs running in that thin air in Kenya should have been a little bit different,” Dyke added ruefully.
Hall again burst into the lead in his World Under-20 Championship semi-final, but in Nairobi’s 1600 metres of elevation, he struggled at the end and missed the final.
“You won’t be able to push it like that in Kenya and survive, especially that last lap. and I think that’s what hurt him. But he’s still young and he’s learning,” Dyke resolved.
South Plains helped Natoya Goule on her way to the worldclass level in the two-lap event. During her sojourn there, Goule won the 600 metres and 800 metres – in record time – at the 2011 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships.