Sprinters can rival Jamaica legends

ZHARNEL HUGHES believes Britain have a “golden generation” of sprinters who will be revered like the Jamaica team of Usain Bolt’s prime come the 2020 Olympics.

Hughes made his prediction the day after he and Dina AsherSmith swept the 100m titles at the Euros.

“There is a new breed of athletes, this is a whole new era,” said Hughes. “It is a golden generation. Will people talk about GB in the way we’ve talked about Jamaica in previous Olympics? I definitely think so.”

Asher-Smith is in that company already, having smashed her own British record and clocked a world-leading 10.85secs for her gold.

“That’s really quick,” said Hughes. “This is just a stepping-stone for the greatness to come for Great Britain. It shows we are ready to take on the rest of the world in the future.” Those are bold HUGHES: Confident words considering Jamaica boasted a raft of global medallists across three Olympic and world cycles.

But nobody knows better than Hughes, who is coached on the island by Glen Mills, the man who guided Bolt to greatness.

“We’ve definitely evolved,” said Hughes. “We can get much stronger and much faster.”

Tim Duckworth’s decathlon challenge fell at the last when a poor 1500m dropped him from second to fifth.

Focus now switches to the men’s 200m final tonight, where Adam Gemili and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake aim to add individual medals to last summer’s world relay gold.

But Gemili was unhappy at scraping into the final as fastest loser, saing: “It was an amateur race. Really disappointing.”