FRATER IN RACE TO REMAIN RELEVANT

Over the last two years, Michael Frater, the 2005 World Championship 100-metre silver medallist, recently added two major gold medals as a member of the Jamaican 4×100 metre relay team. The team set a world record and won at the Olympic Games in Beijing and at the World Championships in Berlin last August. Even though they did not break a world record in Berlin, it managed the second fastest time in history.
In the individual event, Frater has always found a way to bring out his best stuff at major championships, getting to final after final and usually producing season-best times in those finals. His PR of 9.97, for example, was run in the 100 metre finals in Beijing where he almost managed to beat teammate Asafa Powell, who finished disappointing fifth in 9.95s.
However, the 100 metre landscape is becoming a lot more challenging. Usain Bolt, of course, is king, but there is a growing number of medal contenders threatening to push the dimunitive sprinter with the very big heart to the very fringes, and this is only in his own country!
In years gone by Frater was most times a certain fixture as a member of the relay team – the top four sprinters in the nation.
However, from next season onwards it gets a lot more difficult. In addition to Bolt, Asafa Powell and Nesta Carter, Frater will now have to contend with Yohan Blake, Marvin Anderson, Steve Mullings, and several others just to make it into the national team.
Last season Blake surpassed Frater on the list of this nation’s great sprinters when he clocked 9.93s in Rome. Mullings, in running 19.98s in the finals of the men’s 200metre sprint in Berlin, also showed that he ready to run below 10 seconds, a time he flirted with on several occasions last season. Lerone Clarke also dipped below 10 seconds last year and could do so again this year.
It wouldn’t be surprising if world junior champion Dexter Lee could comes out blazing too in his first season as a senior.
But Michael has never been one to shrink away from a challenge. In 2008, he told me he believes he can run as fast as 10.8x, which was why he was disappointed with his time in the finals in Beijing. There is nothing to suggest he will not get there. However, with the number of Jamaican sprinters who have emerged as elite sprinters in the last few seasons, he will have to get to 9.8x or at the very least 9.9-low,  just to be able to make the team.
We know he has the heart for the challenge, its up to him now to show he has the legs for it too.