ATHLETICS: THE GLORY DAYS ARE GONE FOR JAMAICAN MEN, BUT |

AS Jamaica prepare to select their world championship team, the exhilarating days of the nation’s male sprinters, led by Usain Bolt, dominating the world are gone, two of the Caribbean island’s top coaches say.

While the country’s female sprinters continue to excel, the men do not rank among the year’s best in either the 100 or 200 metres.

“It appears we are going through another one of those cycles,” coach Glen Mills, who guided Bolt to eight Olympic gold medals and 14 world championship medals between 2007 and 2017, told Reuters.

“I think that there is talent in the junior level that could develop, which could move us once again to the forefront,” said the optimistic Mills two days before the June 20-23 national championships which will help determine the Jamaican team for the September 28-October 6 world championships in Doha.

Stephen Francis, who brought twotime world 100m bronze medallist and former record holder Asafa Powell to global attention, blamed a variety of reasons for the recent decline.

“You find that a combination of bad coaching, bad environment, bad influences and a lack of discipline and all that kind of things are responsible for the fall,” Francis told Reuters.

“I stated a couple of years ago that there was going to be a problem with male sprinting in Jamaica.”

The saving grace has been the female sprinters led by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, a five-time global champion at 100m, and Rio double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson, the coaches believe.

“Our female programme looks very lucrative with our top females over the years, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson and of course we have quite a large number of youngsters including Briana Williams (world Under-20 double gold medallist) among others,” Mills said.

Francis added: “Shelly and Elaine are there, but you have others in the pipeline who one expects in two or three or four years will replace them.

“But not so for the men, I don’t know if anybody can say where the next good talent is coming from.”

Still there is optimism that Jamaica could win as many as 10 medals in Doha.