IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCES COULD MEAN CHANGES IN THE PECKING ORDER

9.80, 9.92, 9.94 and 9.96 – these were the times run over the 100 metres today by Jamaicans not named Usain Bolt or Asafa Powell.

Steve Mullings continued his impressive season with 9.80s in winning the men’s 100 metres at the Prefontaine Diamond League meet in Eugene, Oregon. The time would have been the fastest in the world this year had it not been for Tyson Gay’s 9.79s set at a meet in Clermont, Florida earlier in the day. Still Mullings continues to demonstrate that he is now among the favourites to campaign for a medal for Jamaica at this summer’s World Championships. On current form the Mullings is – other than Bolt – the only sure thing on that team following the National Championships at the National Stadium in Kingston at the end of June.

The 9.92s came from Nesta Carter who finished third in that race in Eugene that was won by Mullings. This was Carter’s second 100m of the season but his time suggests that he too is on track to repeat last year’s 9.78s that he set in Rieti, Italy. Nesta has spent most of the season so far working on specific parts of his race and now he has started the process of putting them all together. For the past couple of seasons, Carter has gone indoors running 60-metre dashes trying to improve his start and the first phases of his race.

In 2010, Carter clocked a season best 6.54 seconds indoors. It helped him with his start which eventually helped him improve on his personal best of 9.91 in 2009 to 9.86, 9.85 and 9.78s outdoors. This year he shaved .02 off his 60-metre best indoors and then spent the early part of this season running 400s and 200s as he strived for improved speed endurance. With this 9.92 being his first serious run, just 0.01 off his PR two seasons ago, Carter looks well set to be in 9.8x shape for the national championships where he will be taking on the likes of Powell, Mullings and Michael Frater, who also dropped a personal best 9.94 while finishing fifth in Eugene.

Frater has said that this is the healthiest he has been in years and it is beginning to show. The diminutive 2005 World Championship silver medalist has never been short on self-belief and has stated repeatedly that he intends to be on that team to Daegu. So far this season he has demonstrated that he intends to back himself by improving each time he steps out onto the track. Frater clocked a quick 9.98 (2.2m/s) at the Jamaica Invitational in early May, his fastest ever season opener. He followed it up with the 9.94s and has looked better than he ever has. People are easy to characterize the former Wolmerian as the most likely to get bumped off the team, believing that his times have made him vulnerable, but time and time again he has proven doubters wrong.

Nickel Ashmeade, who was a teammate of Yohan Blake at St. Jago High School but who now trains in Florida along with Mullings and Tyson Gay became the latest in a growing list of Jamaicans to break the 10-second carrier with his personal best 9.96s performance in Clermont, finishing behind Tyson Gay. Ashmeade who ran a world-leading 19.95 over the 200 metres at the Jamaica Invitational showed today that that performance was no fluke. He gave early warning this season with a 10.09s run in Florida and now had confirmed his legitimacy with this 9.96 run. Ashmeade now joins Bolt, Powell, Mullings, Blake, Carter, Frater, Clarke, and Forsythe as Jamaicans who have gone below 10-seconds in the last season and a half. These Jamaicans could very well be the men lined up for the finals at the championships and the possibility exists that someone could run below 10 seconds and watch the Worlds from home.

With these performances by Jamaica’s male sprinters, it could also mean that contenders like Asafa Powell may find themselves fighting harder than ever before for spots on the team that they once considered theirs by right. Powell, a man whose fear of high-quality competition is an open secret, could find himself under pressure here at home like he has never experienced before. Mullings, Blake and Carter are hungry cats waiting for their chance to shine and with Powell infamous for wilting under pressure on the world stage, will find himself in a dogfight this month end.

Bolt doesn’t have those issues, having a bye into Daegu, but one could deduce that Mullings’ performance could have got under his skin, if only a little as evidenced by his tweet today following the meet in Eugene. “Listen to me ppl thats the same track the last US trials was kept and everybody ran fast and they couldnt repeat ok so please.” He later apologized but he had already tipped his hand. Something or someone had got his attention.

Bolt’s greatness can never be challenged but what has become clear is that he could not have picked a worse year not to be on top of his game. There is little doubt that he will be ready to go come the end of August but if he isn’t, he could end up seeing another Jamaican standing atop that podium later this summer.