KEY INJURIES WORRYING J’CAN SPRINTERS AND JAMAICANS

With some of Jamaica’s top male sprinters nursing injuries and their American rivals burning up the track with fast times, many a Jamaican track fan is beginning to get a little jittery just about now.

Not that you can blame them. This is a world championship year and the 100-metre defending world champion Yohan Blake has been out with a hamstring injury since mid-April when he suffered the injury at the Utech Classic.

A couple weeks later, Blake’s training partner, the world’s fastest man, the six-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, was forced to pull out of the Jamaica International Invitational set for May 4 because of a mild hamstring strain he picked up in training. Bolt did manage run at the Cayman Invitational four days later but what he showed was that he was not fully ready for that run. A lethargic 10.09s, his slowest time in competition over the 100m, did little to bolster anyone’s confidence least of all his own.

The performance was so relatively weak that Bolt came within a whisker of losing to emerging sprinter Kemar Bailey-Cole, who went across the finish line almost in unison with the 2009 100-metre world champion and world record holder. It took the official photo finish to separate them – Bolt 10.083 to Bailey-Cole’s 10.089.

In the midst of all that Asafa Powell, the 2009 World Championship 100-metre bronze medalist, has been having his own injury worries. Powell, who pulled up lame in the middle of the 100-metre finals at the Olympic Games in London in 2012, suffered a hamstring injury at the Stallwell Gift in Australia in late April and did not compete again until just over a week ago at the All Comers meet at the national stadium. It was like deja vu’ all over again as Powell, this time competing against a field of much lesser quality pulled up lame again, this time from what he described as a cramp. He is out, his management says, until the National Championships in mid-June, by which time he will be hoping he will be fit enough to earn a place on the team to Moscow. At the rate at which things are going for the former world-record holder, his chances at making the team is at the very best, up in the air.

When you add the fact that Michael Frater, who is recovering from knee surgery and has run only twice this season and clearly not back to his best, we are looking at three-quarters of Jamaica’s world record setting sprint relay team from last summer’s Olympics that is walking wounded.

The Americans, the Jamaicans’ greatest rivals are running up a storm. Gay 9.86 and Gatlin 9.91 are sending clear signs that they are ready to really mix it up this year. In a nutshell, things aren’t looking good for Jamaica’s male sprinters just now. Nickel Ashmeade, Bailey Cole, Jacques Harvey and company are not ready just yet to step to that elite level.

Dr. Paul Wright, noted sports medicine specialist, speaking recently on my radio show (Sportsnation Live on Nationwide 90fm), suggested that the heavy work load these sprinters carried up to the Olympics last year and then resuming intense training for the world championships this summer may have resulted in some over training which could be responsible for some of these injuries. When you consider that Olympic 100-metre champion Shelly Ann Frazer Pryce is also suffering from a hamstring niggle, Dr. Wright may be onto something. If he is right, it would behoove the respective coaches to step back and tweak their programmes to take the intense pressure off the athletes.

All is not lost however.

We have seen Bolt recover from injury and less-than-stellar starts to his season to re-impose his extraordinary dominance when it comes to major championships. The only time we have seen him fail to do that was in Daegu in 2011, when after an injury-filled start to his season, Bolt recovered in time to make it to the 100m final only to false start. Then last season after losing to Blake in both 100m and 200m at the national championships, Bolt returned to become the first man to repeat the sprint double at the Olympic Games. There is little doubt that barring further injury, Bolt will be back to his super-fast self in time for Moscow.

Blake has not run since mid-April but his fans should be heartened by his comments coming via Swedish media outlet SVTplay.se that he is planning on successfully defending his world title in Russia and dominate the world. During the interview, Blake, the second fastest man of all time based on his 9.69s-run in virtually still conditions in Lausanne last season, and his 19.26s run the year before, also said he plans to win two individual gold medals in Moscow. This suggests that he is planning on contending for the 200-metre title as well. If we know nothing else about Yohan Blake it’s that he speaks honestly, a little too honestly sometimes. Those who saw it will remember his comments from 2010 when, in reference to work that needed to be done to get him ready to consistently challenge the world’s elite sprinters, he stated during a Flotrack interview that he is working on his ‘mental, psychological and emotional problems’. He is more seasoned now but he still tells it like it is. His words must be heartening for fans and Jamaica’s track and field faithful. The Beast is almost back to full fitness.

If there is a major worry it would be for Asafa Powell. Plagued by injury over the past few seasons, Powell this season has been working harder than he ever has in the hope that he can redeem himself at a major championships. Powell has only two individual bronze medals from the World Championships, none from the Olympics, a major letdown on the career of a man who has run under 10-seconds 88 times, more than anyone else in history. His biggest battle these past few years however, has not been against the likes of Bolt, Blake, Gay and now Gatlin; it’s been against his own body. A groin injury suffered way back in 2005 and persistent hamstring injuries has literally reduced Powell to observer status at the majors.

This could be his last hurrah, so he races against time to get fit in time to go up against an emerging class of very fast youngsters, including Ashmeade, Forte, Nesta Carter, the fifth fastest man of all time, Bailey-Cole, and others who will be vying for individual spots on the team to Russia. Blake and Bolt are defending champions so they can exercise their byes extending the time they have to get ready, Powell does not. He has to take the long route to qualification. We can only hope he will be ready in the next two weeks for a test that could determine his future when it comes to representing Jamaica at the highest level.