World Relays gets cracking in Japan
Published:Saturday | May 11, 2019 | 12:00 AMAkino Ming/Staff Reporter
Yokohama, Japan:
Today, Jamaica will take another step to reinvigorate its dominance on the global athletics stage when it seeks to stamp its authority on the 2019 World Relays.
In light of the fading of the sublime speed that propelled the nation to the top of world athletics for the greater part of the last decade, the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association and its technical committee, including head coach Maurice Wilson, are turning to sound techniques as they transition in a roster of new sprinters.
The new plan is to keep a pool of athletes in relay competitions as often as possible in order to develop chemistry among them.
And they are relying on veterans like Nesta Carter, Sherone Simpson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to lead this new charge at the 2019 World Relays.
Carter and Simpson will lead the men’s and women’s 4x100m in the preliminary rounds today as they seek to end the country’s short drought spell for a gold medal in the event at a global meet with Fraser-Pryce down to run the 4x200m tomorrow.
The last time the teams finished atop the podium at a global meet was at the Beijing World Championships in 2015.
The men’s and women’s mile relay teams are also seeking qualification for tomorrow’s finals.
The men’s team will field the island’s strongest quartet on paper in history as national record holder Rusheen McDonald at 43.93, Akeem Bloomfield at 43.94, Nathon Allen at 44.13, and Demish Gaye at 44.55, come together for the first time.
Though Wilson is not expecting anything phenomenal from this group yet, he is hoping having them together for a long period will produce the magic he is looking for in the World Championships in Doha, Qatar, later this year.
“They are [the] fastest team ever on paper, but we have to be reminded that it is still early, but I think by World Championships, they will be ready to contend for the gold medal,” Wilson said.
The women’s team are without two of its strongest members in Shericka Jackson and Stephenie Ann McPherson, who will be running the 4x200 metres tomorrow, but Janieve Russell and veterans Christine Day and Anastasia Le-Roy, along will Chrisann Gordon, are competent to get the job done.
The mixed relay team – with Javon Francis, Anthony Carpenter, Tiffany James and 400m hurdler Rhonda Whyte – will also be contesting the preliminary round of the 4x400 metres.