Patient Carter on the rise

A season of steady improvement by 110 metres hurdler Deuce Carter accelerated at last Saturday's Racers Grand Prix.

Carter ran strongly to a personal best of 13.20 seconds to become the sixth fastest Jamaican of all time. The performance put him in contention for a top-three spot at the four-day National Senior Championships which starts on June 30.

It was Carter's second personal best of the year following a clocking of 13.41 at the Florida Relays in April.

"Over the years, we have realised some of the issues and we've tried to work on them and it's beginning to show some of the benefits," Carter's coach, Fitz Coleman, revealed.

Coleman, who also coaches World Championships runner-up Hansle Parchment, pointed out that Carter has been in the top two places in all his 2016 races. In fact, he was second in the Florida Relays, the Jamaica Invitational and the Cayman Invitational prior to being the runner-up to former World champion David Oliver on Saturday at the Racers' Grand Prix.

"Those things, we found them quite encouraging," he said.

Carter left Calabar High School in 2010 and has improved a little each year. His coach says they both have had to be patient.

He added: "To be honest, when you have talent like what he has, and you know the talent is there, one has to exercise a lot of patience."

After setting best times of 13.53, 13.51 and 13.49 in the last three years, Carter now stands only behind Parchment and Omar McLeod on the basis of performances in 2016. Interestingly, Carter's rise bears out a National Championships prediction made two weeks before the Racers Grand Prix by 2006 Commonwealth 110-metre hurdles winner Maurice Wignall. The dean of Jamaican hurdlers said, "My picks for the Jamaica team right now would be McLeod, Parchment and Carter."

Coach Coleman also gave an update on an injury niggle picked by Parchment at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, earlier this month.

"He's still complaining about the problem he said he picked up at Prefontaine, but we're hoping, within another two weeks or so, we should be fine," Coleman reported.