With all the responsibility that this entails, Kishane Thompson He became the fourth representative of the Jamaican dynasty of sprinters in the 100 metres. He placed behind Usain Bolt (9.58), Yohan Blake (9.69) and Asafa Powell (9.72) after winning the Trials in 9.77 and a +0.9 wind to overtake Nesta Carter. No athlete from this country had run that far in the last 11 years (Bolt, Moscow). No one had run that far in Kingston, the island’s capital, since Blake in 2012.
Thompson, on lane 6, accelerated in the final 50 meters to overtake last year’s champion, the other boy born in 2001, Oblique Seville (9.82), after having started slow in the blocks, something that will need to improve to be Olympic champion in Paris, in a final that is projected to be the most open in history. His mark is the best of this course, the ninth of all time, the third best of the Olympic cycle. Only Travis Bromell and Fred Kerley ran a hundredth faster in 2021 and 22, with significantly higher winds. Bromell also benefited from the altitude of Nairobi (1,795 meters).
Kishane Thompson at the Jamaican Trials
Little is still known about Thompson, with neat dreadlocks, although no one doubts his future when he looks at his coach, Stephen Francis, the veteran trainer who promoted speed in the country at the beginning of the century with Asafa Powell, the first Jamaican 100m world record holder. Last year, on the advice of the coach, he had given up running in the semifinals after having won the knockout round with 9.91. That was the planned plan and they did not deviate one millimeter. For a boy prone to injuries – the last one was a quadriceps tear in January – it was the most advisable. The renunciation of the World Championships in Budapest did not alter the sprinter’s mind, who in September, in China, left the fifth best performance of the year (9.85). “Mentally I am prepared to withstand the pressure,” he said last January.
With continuous shin problems, and prone to gaining weight, Kishane He has been treated in recent months with an antigravity machine with which he has managed to overcome his problems. “He is above Asafa at all stages,” Francis said in an interview on the TVJ network. “And we have an advantage. The knowledge we have now is far superior to what we had 15 years ago and you won’t have to face the challenges that Powell had to face.”
In the women’s event, and in the absence of the injured Elaine Thompson-Herah, last year’s world runner-up Shericka Jackson successfully defended her national title by running the straight in 10.84, ahead of Tia Clayton (10.90) and veteran Shelly Ann Fraser-Price, 36, who finished in 10.94. Jackson finished a long way short of Sha’Carri Richardson’s mark at the US Nationals, where she ran 10.71.
