400m hurdles – A mouthwatering treat

The Class One 400 metres hurdles at the upcoming ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Championships (Champs) will be a mouthwatering treat. So says Okeile Stewart, coach of Camperdown High School’s gold medal contender Roshawn Clarke. Stewart expects a big race if all the protagonists get to Champs in good form.

Clarke lowered his best from 50.93 seconds last year to 50.31, to win the Corporate Area Championships, and to 49.85 seconds at the Carifta Trials behind a rampaging Rayon Campbell of Kingston College, 49.52. Those times made Campbell and Clarke the second and fourth fastest Jamaican Under-20 performers in history, behind Clarke’s sometime training partner Jaheel Hyde. “The 49 is something that he has been working towards. We know he was capable of doing it but, without competition, you wonder if you would have seen it and, as such, I’m glad that the young man from KC pretty much did what he did so we are able to see some semblance of what Roshawn is capable of doing,” said coach Stewart.

Hyde is the fastest Class One hurdler in Champs history, at 49.01 seconds.

MID-RACE SURGE

Campbell won the Trials with a big mid-race surge but Stewart is looking ahead. “One of the things I’m teaching these days is that you can’t allow people to push you to run their race. You just need to execute your race and, as such, from time to time, what we emphasise is on running the different zones, you know, and from there, the time will come. So, if you’re trying to achieve a particular time, then, once we execute the zones, the time will come,” he rationalised.

“If somebody executes a better race on that day, then we just have to accept what it is, you understand, but if you’re able to run below 49 seconds, then that is what I would like to see on the clock at the end of the race,” the coach pinpointed.

Clarke also suffered disappointment at last year’s World Under-20 Championships. Then just 17, he strolled home after the last hurdle in his semi-final but lost a place in the final on the lean. “I believe it plays on his mind,” Stewart observed. “And it is one of the things that is also pushing him because he knew he made an error then and he would have learnt from it.”

He eased up a little at the Trials as well but later told Stewart, ‘I need to stop doing that, I could have gone at least 49.6’.

With last year’s Class Two gold and silver medallists, Antonio Forbes of KC and Shamier Blake of St Elizabeth Technical High School, also in the hunt, the event is compelling. “People want that supreme glory at the end of the day and, as such, and who is going to hold their nerves a lot better on the day, and I believe, if these guys would turn up, it’s going to be a mouthwatering treat,” Stewart predicted.