Jackson can break the 200m world-record - Carr

One key narrative of the last two seasons has been the progress of Shericka Jackson. The former 400-metres runner has become one of the world’s finest 100 and 200m sprinters and now stands an eye blink from the world-record for the longer event. Wolmer’s High School for Girls’ coach Michael Carr said she has the potential to do it once she focuses on technique and once she refrains from pressuring herself with record predictions.

Since her conversion from the one-lap event, the MVP Track Club star has lowered her 200m personal best from 22.05 to 21.81 in 2021 to 21.45 in 2022 and 21.41 seconds this season. Carr thinks there’s more there.

“If she goes out and executes a perfect race, it can happen. But if she keeps saying that I’m going for the record, it won’t happen. She just needs to execute step by step and it can happen. But if she keeps saying every time ‘I’m going for the world record’, it will never happen because you’re pressuring yourself in certain ways and you’re under clock pressure,” he reasoned on December 9 at the PA Benjamin Wesley Powell Excelsior Track Meet.

He agrees that the 2022 and 2023 World 200m champion might well improve as she enters her third full year in the renowned MVP sprint programme. “I expect that to happen,” he affirmed.

Now 29, Jackson has improved in the 100m as well, taking bronze in the Olympic 100m final in 2021 and silver in the World Championships in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Along the way, the former Vere Technical and University of Technology stand-out has lowered her personal best from 11.13 to 10.76 in 2021 to 10.71 in 2022 and to 10.65 seconds this season.

Her ascent has elevated her to joint-fifth-fastest with world champion Sha’Carri Richardson in the 100m and to number-two of all-time behind the late Florence Griffith-Joyner in the 200m.

“The potential is there,” Carr specified, “but as I said, if she keeps saying I’m going for the world record, it won’t happen because she pressures herself. Just go out there and do what you have to do. If the world record comes, it comes. That’s how I see it.”

Jackson has broken 22 seconds 14 times in her career, with her five fastest efforts logged at 21.41, 21.45, 21.48, 21.55 and 21.57 seconds respectively. No one has more sub-21.6 clockings in track and field history.

Second in this compilation is Griffith-Joyner who set a world record 21.56 in her 1988 Olympic semi-final before going even faster - 21.34 - in the final, with Jamaica’s Grace Jackson the silver medal winner at 21.72.