No rush for coach Grant and sprinter DeAndre Daley

After a prolonged but brilliant 2023 season, DeAndre Daley is being brought along slowly this year.

That is the assurance from Claude Grant, who coaches the speedy Daley at Herbert Morrison Technical High. Coach Grant is pointing the youngster towards the World Under-20 Championships in Lima, Peru, starting on August 27.

Last year, Daley ran a personal best 10.14 seconds in the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) Class One 100 metres final behind the stupendous national junior record of 9.99 seconds by Bouwahjgie Nkrumie of Kingston College. The following week, after losing his Carifta 100m title to a false start, Daley clocked a dramatic 4x100m anchor leg to give Jamaica the gold in the Bahamas before extending his season with relay duty at the Pan-American Under 20 Championships in August.

However, until Daley toed the line for the Class One 400 metres at last Saturday’s Youngster Goldsmith Classics, fans have been wondering if the oft-injured speedster was fit.

“Remember that Daley finished his season way in August,” Grant replied to the query at the National Stadium, “so I have to take my time to bring him forward. If everything goes well, his season should finish in August, World Juniors. So, therefore, I’m in no rush with Daley.”

Grant’s productive Herbert Morrison sprint programme has produced two-time World Under-20 100 champion Dexter Lee, 2018 World Indoor 60m finalist and Olympic relay medal winner Remona Burchell, 4x400m Olympian Tovea Jenkins, and 2004 World Under-20 200m bronze medallist Nickesha Anderson, and Grant is pleased to have helped Daley get through last season injury free.

“What is important for him is that he remains healthy, and once he does that, then he’s all right because he normally trains well. He normally performs well, and my job is to try to bring back a next world title to Jamaica,” the coach said calmly.

Like most sprinters, Daley doesn’t look forward to racing over the full 400m and tried to measure his effort around the National Stadium track. Pitted against Roshane Symister of Jamaica College and drawn in Lane Two, where he could track the JC boy in Lane Five, Daley moved at the 200 mark. Symister won in a steady 48.69 seconds, with the lad from Herbert Morrison the runner-up with a personal best time of 50.44.

Symister’s time was also a personal best.

After the race, Daley commented: “I wanted to break the 50-second barrier, but I didn’t get it ,but I won’t go and beat up myself. I know I’ve been putting in the work.”

That mirrored Grant’s pre-race view of the race as training.

“He’s a 100/200m runner, so when he runs the 400m, he’s just doing it to see where he is and to get his confidence and to get his feet wet, and he’ll be all right,” the coach concluded.