Men’s sprint hurdles to ignite Racers Grand Prix
THE 110m hurdles event at the June 3 Racers Grand Prix at the National Stadium will give Jamaican track and field fans a preview of what could be the final at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association’s (JAAA) National Championships, set for a month later.
Five of Jamaica’s fastest ever male sprint hurdlers, including the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games champions, will line up in a race that could serve as ‘confidence booster’ in the race for places on the Jamaican team to the World Athletics Championships to be held in Budapest, Hungary, later in August.
Commonwealth gold medallist and record holder Rasheed Broadbell is the number tworanked hurdler in the world after he ran 13.12 seconds in Florida a month ago.
Former World Under-20 Championships silver medallist Tyler Mason ran 13.32 seconds in late April, equalling his personal best set in 2015 and could be getting back to his fluid best.
Olympic champion Hansle Parchment was poised to add the World Championships gold medal to his tally last year before getting injured as he took his warm-up strides and then pulled out of the Commonwealth Games final.
Parchment ran 13.60 seconds at the Drake Relays last month and the Racers GP could be his first hurdles race in Jamaica before the National Championships.
Ronald Levy, the Olympic Games bronze medallist, who missed all of last year after competing in the first round of the World Indoor Championships in Serbia, will be eager to get back to his best which saw him also win Commonwealth Games gold in 2018 and three national championships.
Damion Thomas and Orlando Bennett, the gold and silver medallists, respectively, from the World Under-20 Championships in Finland in 2018, Lfranz Campbell who is in his first season as a professional as well as American Robert Dunning are expected to make the event even more interesting.