A good all-round display, says Wilson

DOHA, Qatar:

Head coach of Jamaica’s team at the IAAF World Championships, Maurice Wilson, has praised the team’s performance in Doha and said it was important for Jamaica to bounce back from their disastrous performance at the last World Championships in London in 2017.

Jamaica enters the last day of the competition inside the Khalifa International Stadium with nine medals – three gold, 4 silver and two bronze, a major improvement on the four-medal return from the London 2017 championships. They currently sit third in the medal table behind the United States on 25, and Kenya, who despite having eight medals, sit second by virtue of the fact they have one more gold medal than Jamaica.

The Jamaicans have, so far, matched their medal tallies from the 2013 and 2011 championships in Moscow and Daegu, respectively, with only the Berlin 2009 (13 medals) and Beijing 2015 (11 medals) championships producing more medals for the country at the World Championships so far.

“From a psychological standpoint, we knew that it was important for us to overcome what took place in 2017 and so we started the journey. We went to the Commonwealth Games to increase our medal tally and to give that sort of confidence to the athletes, and so I think we achieved that and we are on a steady path in terms of maybe not necessarily getting as many sprint medals as we would have wanted, but in terms of improving in terms of our performance internationally in all the disciplines that we participate in,” Wilson told the Sunday Gleaner.

With four of the island’s nine medals coming in field events, Wilson underlined that the country is now truly a global power in track and field and should no longer be seen as only a sprints or track events standout.

GLOBAL POWER

“We have proven to the world that we are not only a global power in track, but in track and field. We are a global power because we have garnered final positions in different disciplines, the 800m, the short sprints, the throws, the jumps, we could not ask for more in terms of all-round performance from our athletes,” Wilson added.

“It speaks to the fact that track and field is alive and well in Jamaica and we have to give the JAAA (Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association) and all those entities involved the credit,” said Wilson.

“G.C. Foster College has been training the coaches over so many years and we are now seeing the effects of the efficient training by the personnel at G.C. Foster College, where the talent pool, because it is spread all over the island, we now have the technical expertise of coaches in various different disciplines, and so I am extremely happy at this point,” said Wilson, who also serves as acting principal at G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sport.