A number of Jamaicans, including so called experts, are predicting that this year’s World Track and Field Championships in Moscow Russia, which begins in a few hours, will be boring. This crazy sentiment is due to clear short-sightedness and a lack of a true appreciation for the sport.
A number of Jamaicans, including so called experts, are predicting that this year’s World Track and Field Championships in Moscow Russia, which begins in a few hours, will be boring. This crazy sentiment is due to clear short-sightedness and a lack of a true appreciation for the sport.
All the competing nations at the event have sent their best athletes to represent them and as usual there will be breakout performances from names that we do not know, but will eventually become household names in a few short weeks.
When Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce qualified to represent Jamaica at the Beijing Olympics, many of those same so-called experts called for her to be axed at the expense of Veronica Campbell-Brown. The Jamaica Administrative Athletics Association(JAAA) wisely followed their own guidelines and the rest, as they say, is history. Fraser-Pryce not only went on to become 100m Olympic Champion, but repeated in London last year. In between, she won the 100m title at the last World Championships.
The prospect of seeing new emerging talents displaying their skills in the various disciplines over the next few days, should excite everyone as they dare to challenge the established stars for a spot on the podium.
From a Jamaican stand point, we have emerging talents both on the track and in the field which should cause us to happily lose sleep for the next few days. In the men’s 100m there is Kemar Bailey-Cole who finished as runner-up to the legendary Usain Bolt at the national championships. Bailey-Cole has promised much and Moscow may just prove to be his coming out party.
Our quarter milers have shown themselves this season. After a long dearth at this distance, on the male side, Javier Bell has knocked on the door. Under the guidance of Bertland Cameron, the first ever World Champion at 400m, Bell has managed to lower his personal best to 45.05 this year and Cameron believes that there may be something special in store from his charge in Moscow.
Stephanie McPherson, a student at the University of Technology, has had a fantastic season so far this year, consistently lowering her personal best and registered her first ever sub-50 clocking in her last outing before the championships, where she placed second in 49.92 behind defending world champion Amantle Monthso of Botswana. Such has been her consistent improvement that Yardie Sports is predicting her to take Silver at the championships.
The 800m is an event that gets very little press in Jamaica, but the response of the fans at the Jamaica National Trials, to Natoya Goule’s 1:59.93 clocking, to make the ‘A’ standard for the World Championships, certainly means that almost everyone will be tuned in to see how well she does in Moscow.
In the field, Damar Forbes won the NCAA Division One long jump Gold medal then won at the National Trials before staking his claim for a podium finish in Moscow when he won at the Paris Diamond League with a leap of 8.11m.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Kerron Stewart, Usain Bolt, Nickel Ashmeade and the most improved Jamaican male sprinter, Warren Weir, will lead the charges from among the established athletes as the nation seeks to maintain its dominance in world sprinting. Veteran quarter miler, Novlene Williams-Mills will also be a medal contender and Hansle Parchment just back from injury could surprise in the men’s 110m hurdles as Jamaica seeks to leave Moscow Russia with a large bounty.
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