100 DAYS TO RIO GLORY
The start of the 2016 Rio Olympics, Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce are gunning for a third straight 100 metres gold medal.
Five-time Olympian, Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, is predicting that Jamaica will go past the 12-medal count earned at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England, due to improvement from the athletes expected to make the team to the Rio Olympics this summer.
The track and field athletes will be selected following the Jamaica Athletic Administrative Association (JAAA) senior championships, June 30 to July 3.
“The top athletes that got medals at the World Championship last year will do better. I think we are going to do incredibly well in Brazil,” Cuthbert-Flynn told STAR Sports. “I see us doing a little better than the 12 medals at the World Championship in Beijing,” she emphasised.
“I believe that the athletes will get down there and do their best as the Olympic Games is a bigger stage than the World Championships,” the former sprinter added.
In addition to Usain Bolt, who got a combined six gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games; Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, winner of the 100m and silver medallist in the 200m, and others like Warren Weir and Yohan Blake, the two-time Olympic silver medallist - Cuthbert-Flynn is also confident that World Championships 100m hurdles gold medallist Danielle Williams will do well at her first Olympic Games.
Looking back, Cuthbert-Flynn made her first Olympic Games in 1980 at age 16, but did not run in an event.
“It was a good experience, as I returned four years later and made it to the 100m semi-finals. Then in 1988, I made the final and finished seventh,” she reflected.
However, it was in 1992 that Cuthbert-Flynn got most success at the Olympic Games, where she earned silver in the 100m and 200m events.
UNDERDOG
“It was an awesome experience as it was four times a charm. I was an underdog to Merlene Ottey, Gail Devers and other people,” she highlighted. “Going to five Olympic Games taught me resilience. I practice that in life and now I keep working hard,” said Cuthbert-Flynn who was successful at the Jamaica General Elections in February and is now the St Andrew West Rural Member of Parliament for the ruling Jamaica Labour Party.