IT’S TIME YOU GOT STARTED
Fast-finisher Prescod must be quicker off the blocks
REECE PRESCOD doesn’t need the projector and analysis screen he bought recently to identify the single weakness keeping him off the top of podiums, because he already knows what it is.
The issue, of course, is his slow start. If that can be improved, then the pace he showed once upright against the world’s fastest men on Saturday suggests he will soon be pulling away from the pack to win elite races, rather than recovering from last place to manage a podium finish.
That latter scenario has been the pattern of his summer. It showed itself in the European Championships final, where he fought back to almost snatch gold from Zharnel Hughes, and it was repeated in the strongest 100 metres field of the season here, when he left his blocks as though he was dragging a sack of anvils attached to a parachute by ship chains.
That he recovered for a personal best of 9.94sec and only lost to Christian Coleman in a photo finish tells of just how fast Prescod is when that 6ft 4in frame is unfolded.
To appreciate just how fast, you only have to look at the men he ran past — noah lyles, the quickest man in the world this year, Yohan Blake, the former world champion, Hughes, the newly crowned sprint king of Europe, and Commonwealth gold medallist Akani Simbine. There was also CJ Ujah, the Diamond league champion, the highly rated Jamaican Tyquendo Tracey and Michael Rodgers of the US.
And that is why folk at British Athletics are excited about next year’s world championships in Doha. They also have Hughes, who has a 9.91sec personal best.
But the extra hype around 22-year- old Prescod comes from the sense he could still get far better.
‘The start is definitely a key thing I need to work on,’ he said. ‘But I am getting quicker, so I know in my head I am getting better. once I have put another winter behind me, and got strong in the positions I need to get strong, it will improve.’
Prescod’s start is a flaw he has in common with other big men, like world record-holder Usain Bolt. Prescod estimates that, with help from biomechanics experts, he could shave as much as 0.10sec off his times by improving his start. Having run a windassisted 9.88 earlier this year, Prescod has spoken about getting below 9.80sec and into the 9.7s.
His immediate target is another personal best in the Diamond league final in Brussels at the end of this month, which will close his season. Before that, he will study his races on the projector he bought ‘as a treat’ after his European silver medal. ‘I have to keep pushing myself and pushing for my best. I can’t be resting on my laurels,’ he said. ‘As I said, once I dropped below 10sec, my body would get used to it and feel it and I need to make it consistent now. ‘I can’t be running 10s, it has to be strictly in the 9s.’