Dwyer ready to go fast again - Wilson

Sprintec’s head coach, Maurice Wilson, says that expectations are very high this season for national 200m champion Rasheed Dwyer, noting that he is expecting his charge to run sub-20 seconds in the event this year.

Dwyer, who is the 2014 Commonwealth Games 200m champion, has a personal best of 19.80 seconds, which he achieved at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto, Canada.

His time is the fourth fastest over the distance by a Jamaican in the event behind world record holder Usain Bolt (19.19), Yohan Blake (19.26), and Warren Weir (19.79).

After a dip in form in 2016 after he was diagnosed with the Chic-V virus, Dywer had one of his most successful years on the track in 2019, when he won the national 200m title. The powerfully built sprinter also made it to the semi-finals of the men’s 200m at the World Championships in September last year.

“From 2016 when he had the Chic-V, we just, finally, last year, saw him rounding up in shape, and so we felt that if he had some more races, then he would have done a lot better at the World Championships in Doha,” said Wilson.

“He is the most experienced 200m runner that we have, along with Yohan Blake, and so I believe that he stands a real chance of doing well in the 200m, and if he is able to put everything together, then he will get to the final at the Olympic Games,” he said.

“His training has been going excellent, and there are no complaints because he is more technically efficient and a lot faster,” Wilson added. “He is one of the few athletes in Jamaica that would have run below sub-20 seconds two times in 24 hours in 2015 at the Pan Am Games. The fact that he was able to do this, it has always given me the encouragement that he can do it again or go close to it.”

Wilson, who has led Jamaican coaching teams at the Olympic Games and World Championships, noted that Dwyer’s efforts at the National Championships in 2019 provided encouraging signs that he is ready to go fast again this season.

“The objective is to get him below 20 seconds because at the National Trials last year, he ran six races, and he ran faster in every one,” Wilson said. “He ran 10.10 seconds and 20.23 seconds, and so I believe that if he is able to put the race together and run just one race, then I think he should be able to run sub-20 seconds.”