Change of focus! - Calabar's Taylor will not face big men at National Champs

World Under-18 400 metres champion, Christopher Taylor, won't be racing with the big men at this week's JAAA National Senior Championships.

Back spasms have influenced a decision to move Taylor from the men's 400m to the Under-20 boys 200 metres. Michael Clarke, Taylor's coach at Calabar High School, says his charge's summer target is now the Pan-American Junior Championships.

"He's having some back, hamstring spasms," reported Clarke yesterday. "It comes and goes as he's still undergoing treatment and he has been responding OK," he outlined.

He said the discomfort influenced the change of focus from the senior 400m. "We have opted not to go to the senior Trials", Clarke explained. "He doesn't want to run (the seniors) but he'll be going to the junior Trials," said the coach.

WILL RUN 200m

"He'll be running the 200 metres," he said of the young man who reached the final of the 400m at the 2016 National Senior Championships.

Nevertheless, Taylor is the fastest Jamaican junior in the 200m after his time of 20.59 seconds at the GC Foster Classic in March. He won the Class One 200m at Boys and Girls' Championships with a wind-aided run of 20.70 seconds.

Taylor turns 18 in October and is therefore ineligible for the World Under-18 Championships next month in Kenya. To be eligible, entrants have to be under 18 for the entire calendar year.