Bronze debut

PARIS, France:

In a season plagued by injuries, Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell made a triumphant Olympic debut, securing his first major global championship medal on Thursday.

Broadbell copped bronze in the men’s 110m hurdles final in a season’s best effort of 13.09 seconds to win Jamaica’s sixth medal of the Games and the second on the track.

Reigning World champion Grant Holloway won the event, finally bagging an Olympic title in 12.99 while his American teammate, Daniel Roberts, who also ran 13.09 seconds, was second.

Jamaica’s Orlando Bennett was seventh in 13.34 seconds and former Olympic champion Hansle Parchment was eighth in 13.39.

Starting his season only in June due to injuries that had plagued a tumultuous year, Broadbell remained resolute. Despite the discomfort, he was committed to giving his best in an Olympic debut that he had been eagerly anticipating for years.

“I have to thank God. He has been in the midst of everything this year, this season, given that it has been an up-and-down season – more downs than ups. But tonight, I got the up. I wanted to be on top of the podium, but I can’t complain,” Broadbell said after the race.

He said that he started feeling a bit of discomfort before warming up, but he was determined to get to the tape.

“I just wanted it to hold up. I prayed before I got here and just asked God to hold up my body. I felt like I executed the best I could to get a medal,” he added.

Thursday’s bronze was the culmination of a three-year journey to get to a major global championship final after Broadbell narrowly missed the World Championships final in 2022 and crashed out in the first round of last year’s Budapest staging.

Having also missed out on the opportunity to compete for a spot at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, he was all the more determined on Thursday.

“I didn’t come up short, given the season that I had, but there is more work to be done. ... I waited three years to come out here and give it my best shot, and I did that tonight,” Broadbell said.

Jamaica now has four Olympic medals in the men’s 100m hurdles while Halloway ended the island’s streak of Olympic titles after 2016 and 2021.

Meanwhile, national champion Rushell Clayton and compatriot Shiann Salmon finished fifth (52.68 seconds) and sixth (53.29 seconds), respectively, in the women’s 400m hurdles final. The race was dominated by reigning champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who again shattered the world record with a 50.37-second performance. Anna Cockrell was second in 51.87 seconds, and reigning World champion Femke Bol was third in 52.15.

Clayton said that while she believed she executed her race well, she just could not vie for a medal.

“The ladies were just better than me today. I think I ran the race I set out to run. I just didn’t have the legs to finish in a medal position. I am hurt because I wanted to finish in the medal position, but it tells me that there is still more work to be done,” she said.

In other action, Jamaica’s Ackelia Smith finished eighth in the women’s long jump final. It was her second final in her debut Olympic Games, with her best distance of 6.66m coming in the first round. Smith finished seventh in the women’s triple jump final days earlier.

Jamaica’s women advanced to today’s finals of the 4x100m relays, which is set for 1:10 p.m. Jamaica time. The team of Alana Reid, Kemba Nelson, Shashalee Forbes, and Tia Clayton clocked 42.35 seconds to finish third in their heat as an automatic qualifier. Nelson made her Olympic debut, being a late call-up, after Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson were ruled out of the Games with injury concerns.

For the first time in 20 years, Jamaica will not field a team in the men’s 4x100m final after the team of Ackeem Blake, Jehlani Walker, Jelani Gordon, and Olympic 100m silver medallist Kishane Thompson finished fourth in their heat in 38.45 seconds, a time too slow to get them through as a non-automatic qualifier.

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