Jamaicans versus Americans in sprint battle

Jamaica may have won the last two wars but the next few are going to be really tough. Since the world championships in Berlin, Germany, American sprinter Carmelita Jeter has gone faster with each race. On the weekend she became the second fastest woman ever when she blew away a fairly strong field in Shanghai, China in 10.64 seconds.

Minutes later at the same meet Tyson Gay equalled Usain Bolt’s previous world record of 9.69, becoming the second man to breach the 9.70-second barrier legally. Notwithstanding the 2m/s wind Gay will go into the off season confident that he can challenge Usain Bolt for the title of best sprinter in the world.

Jeter dusted Veronica Campbell Brown who ran a season’s best 10.89s for second but Jeter was so remarkable she actually seemed to be pulling away at the end of the race and looked very impressive indeed. She would have also cemented her ranking as the number one female sprinter in the world this year.

Sure enough Jeter’s performances following the world championships have had Jamaicans talking about drugs but let’s just give it a rest. Jeter is only now just putting the different pieces of her race together after a season of learning under new coach John Smith who became her coach last November.

She will go into next season full of confidence knowing that she can easily defeat World and Olympic champion Shelly Ann Fraser and World and Olympic silver medallist Kerron Stewart who both have yet to put together a perfect race. Stewart struggles with her start while Fraser – like her MVP short sprinters, struggles with her speed maintenance – her finish. We have seen both women’s flaws this season. Stewart is always a step short at the finish.

With Jeter, who has got her start right and armed with incredible speed maintenance, is taking it to the Jamaican women who dominated earlier on this season. It goes without saying that both Jamaicans have a lot of work to do this off season.

Bolt admittedly is a bit better off. He is only going to get better next season so it’s hard to see Gay really challenging him. Bolt is faster and if not stronger is as equally strong as Gay. Both men run the 200m so they have no issues with maintaining their speed. Here is where the gap begins to widen. Gay is 27 and in his prime. It is conceivable that he does not have much more room for improvement.

Bolt, on the other hand is 23 and not even close to his prime. Coach Glen Mills says Bolt can increase his strength by another 20 per cent. This is huge. If he manages to do that Gay will have to pray for Bolt to have a very bad day or that he gets injured. Bolt is already a tenth or more of a second, faster than Gay.  Even if Gay gets stronger this off season, his strength gains will not match the gains Bolt makes. Bolt also has huge mechanical adjustments to make which when accomplished will make his transitions smoother and make him so much of an efficient sprinter.

Asafa Powell is the one with all the work to do. He is still prone to giving up when he gets caught, like he did on Sunday. He needs to work harder and smarter if he is to stop getting dusted by Gay and Bolt who are gradually opening up a gap on him.

Powell has admitted that he is lazy. He has to recognise that he needs to salvage his reputation as a quitter and choker. He achieved that to some degree in the finals of the men’s 100m in Berlin but he needs to do more.

He needs to stop finding excuses to fail and start finding means to getting back into the game. He owes it to the millions of supporters he has. He is far too talented to be left out of the conversation on the best sprinters of all time. The thing is his window is rapidly closing. He needs to make a move now or very soon the conversation of who were the best sprinters of this era will only be about Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt.