It is not often in life that one gets to witness a special performance like the one we saw from Usain Bolt at the Gibson Relays on Saturday.

That special performance was not the easy 9-second anchor leg ‘jog’ put down by the triple world and Olympic Champion as his Racer’s track club won the Clubs and Institutions 400-metre relay in a world-leading 38.08seconds. No, that mind-boggling piece of work came in a losing effort in the 4×400 metre relay.

Bolt, running for the Racers Lions, a team that included Yohan Blake, and Alonzo Barrett, found himself far behind on the anchor leg and proceeded to show the stuff we all know champions are made of. He uncorked a 43.6s anchor leg that dropped the jaws of all who saw it.

 His team finished second but that was secondary to the recognition now that Bolt – if he so chooses – can be a world beater at the 400 metres as well.

We all know he has the potential. Those of us who have been following his career saw his 45.35 at Champs, we have also seen the ease at which he produces 45-second runs to start each season.

A few weeks ago during the unveiling of his piece of the Berlin wall, a memento of his amazing exploits at the world championships in Berlin, Bolt revealed that he has not done any work with regards to the 400 metres this off season. That revelation made his performance on Saturday even more remarkable.

The 43-second relay split is equivalent to between a 44.2 and 44.5 over the flat 400 metres. This, without any 400 metre work. Incredible. The flat times are already good enough to challenge World Champion Leshawn Merritt, who says he would welcome Bolt stepping up to his event.  Based on what we have seen Merritt should be careful what he wishes for.
There has been debate about how fast Bolt can run a 400 metres if he actually trains for it. Many, including many-time champion Maurice Greene feel that 41 seconds is not out of the question, given the ease at which Bolt can produce 20-second runs for the 200m.

Based on what we saw on Saturday, we have now come to understand that such an accomplishment will come. It is only a matter of time.

There is no one reason why over the past two years more and more kids are turning out for track training. It could be that they were inspired by the success of Asafa Powell, Sherone Simpson, Brigette Foster, Veronica Campbell Brown and others on the Grand Prix circuit. It could also be the incredible success of Usain Bolt and company at the Beijing Olympics, and last year’s World Championships, Jamaica’s best global performance ever.
Whatever the reason, this country is witnessing a remarkable rate of turnout of kids wanting to become the next track star, but are we equipped to deal with it?
Going through the high school system is challenging enough but many of our kids will now want to stay here in Jamaica to pursue their academic and athletic careers.
Will Jamaica be able to support this? There are many local coaches who are now qualified to take our athletes to the next level but only a handful have that established reputation that will attract potential stars to their already overburdened clubs.
Stephen Francis and Glen Mills are easily among the best coaches in the world but they wont be around forever. The time has come for the governing bodies to start improving on the coaching talent available, whether that means making available more advanced courses to the current crop of coaches or hand-picking a few of the more outstanding coaches and helping them hone their specific skills, is up to the authorities but there has to be more options available to the growing number of athletes who want to be trained by home-grown talent.
The University of Technology, for example, may end up putting another campus in Trelawny, surely they dont expect Stephen Francis to be at two places at the same time.
Clearly there needs to be other high quality coaches available to help develop the available talent out west.
We cant wait, we have to start acting now. Improving the quality of our track and field coaching can also have the effect of attracting athletes from overseas to come here to train – sports tourism.
If we dont act fast we can easily lose claim to being the sprint factory of the world in less than a decade from now when we run the risk of returning to the days when we were producing one or two world-beating athletes every four years or so. We have long gone past that stage and its now time to build onto greater things.

I was watching a video on TrackAlerts.com this week of former world record holder Asafa Powell being interviewed. Among other things, he was asked what he thought of Justin Gatlin’s comments that he is returning from his drug ban ready to challenge the top three sprinters of all time – Powell, Gay and Bolt.
Powell responded to the question by saying Gatlin wont be able to cut it when he returns and he said it with venom. I like that.
Asafa has always been meek. It’s one of the traits many people like about him. He is humble and never usually has a bad word to say about anyone.
The only trouble is Asafa is a sprinter and that requires a certain amount of bravado. Many people might not have liked Maurice Greene’s antics, or Ato Boldon’s cockiness, or Donovan Bailey’s arrogance, but these guys were successful not only because of the talent they possessed but also because they got under the skins of their opponents by being brazen.
Intimidation is a critical tool that successful athletes use to get to the top and Asafa, as one of the three fastest men of all time, needs to add it to his arsenal. He has the speed and he has the times but he lacks the venom.
We saw him relax a bit more during the last World Championships in Berlin and he ran his best race in a final despite suffering from an ankle injury.
He has tried to do it the ‘nice’ way and I hope he now sees that his way is not necessary the best way.
The ankle is about 80 percent better he said in the interview, so we suspect that by the time the Diamond League starts in May, he will be ready to rumble with Gay and Bolt, men who have surpassed him over the past three years.
That fire that he exhibited, if he can maintain it from now on, should serve him well because they are many sprinters gunning for his number three slot. If he is to keep them at bay and possibly return to the top he has to show more of it. He has to unleash the beast within because for all his passive upbringing Asafa needs to remember that there is a reason they say nice guys finish last.

Chairman of the RJR Group Gary Allen made an eyebrow-raising statement earlier this week that I think sends a message that all is not right in athlete land.
The Chairman revealed that the media group, the primary sponsors of the JAAA’s Sportsman/Sportswoman of the Year Awards, is considering withdrawing its sponsorship from the annual awards that recognise the accomplishments of our local athletes.
He claims this came about following the disrespectful behaviour of some of the island’s top athletes at the most recent awards, and prior to the event, a rumoured boycott by some of the track and field athletes in a mystifying protest of guest speaker 400-metre world champion Sanya Richards, Jamaican by birth but who represents the United States of America.
According to the RJR Chairman the behaviour of the athletes was disappointing in that the group spends millions of dollars staging the event as well as flying in and putting up athletes at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.
The ‘disrespectful’ behaviour Allen says included the late arrival of recipients of the respective athlete of the year awards.
It also included the hour-late arrival of an athlete booked at the hotel. In one other reported slight against the sponsors, one of our primary athletes, after arriving late at the function, was seen walking around with her shoes in her hand, and when an opportunity arose for her to greet the RJR Chairman, extended her elbow to him.
Such behaviour is not only unbecoming, it is downright rude.
The reality is our athletes are a reflection of society’s deterioration and the disappearance of values, etiquette, and social graces. However, our multi-millionaire athletes have managers; managers who are supposed to help them make the transition from relative poverty and obscurity into the world of fame and fortune; managers, who are also supposed to be aiding the holistic development of the athlete.
I find it quite intriguing that these very same athletes would not exhibit this kind of behaviour when they are invited to international awards ceremonies.
Is it because they have no respect for the local administrators and the people who helped lay the foundation for their success?
We often hear that Jamaica does nothing for its athletes but expects much in return but is this really true or just a myth spouted by the athletes and their management teams to justify their selfish behaviour?
I will just mention the Boys and Girls Athletic Championships without which many of our talented athletes would never have a stage on which to perform enabling them to get scholarships and to be seen by potential sponsors. I’ll stop there.
What is also interesting to note is that Jamaica’s lesser known athletes are not the ones showing the disrespect. They are the ones who are at the award ceremonies on time even though they know that they will not win awards but they do appreciate the fact that they are being recognised for their contribution to sport.
It is these athletes for whom I will grieve if there are no sponsors for the event which will most likely mean that the awards ceremony will disappear from the landscape like so many other events of its kind.
Maybe that is what is needed. After all, if the athletes dont seem to care why should anybody else? Or, maybe its time for the athletes to check themselves and realise that the behaviour they exhibit not only slights the sponsors and the JAAA, it also slights the Jamaican people whom they represent. If they have lost sight of this fact, let me just say this, if it was not for Jamaica they would have no home to represent, no colours to don.
If that happens, who does it hurt the most? Think about it.

In recent times track meet organisers have had to be scrambling trying to find venues to hold development meets in suitable venues.

The Stadium East is under repair, and the national stadium is also due for repair soon. The track at GC Foster College is also in a very bad state. Meanwhile, up in Sligoville, St. Catherine, not that far from GC Foster, a ‘brand new’ facility sits idle overrun by weeds.

The facility, built a few years ago by the Chinese government at a cost of US$3 million, is a perfect example of how myopic our leaders have been. The complex has facilities for basketball, football, and a six-lane running track that could have been used now to host a few development meets this year and in the years to come, but as of right now, it just sits there gathering dust.

Wouldnt such a facility built in a more strategic location be more beneficial to many more people? One would have to ask the Member of Parliament KD Knight since the complex was his idea. I am sure meets could be held there but I doubt if it is even open to the public.
The last time I passed there the gates were chained and padlocked so I doubt anyone could get in except perhaps to steal something.

The thing is we dont even see or hear of any attempts to make use of the facility. Perhaps schools in St Catherine could stage track meets, football matches, and even basketball games there.

Its instances like these that make one understand why more wealthy countries are reluctant to do much to help us.

Why isnt the facility being used? If we did not have a vision for the complex why get the Chinese to build it there as opposed to, say, Manchester. If it was built in a more central location – Kirkvine, for example – it would have been fully operational and athletes, schools and organisations could have made good use of it.
But as it is right now, it’s yet another white elephant on the Jamaica landscape, US$3million down the drain.

What a pity. What a tragedy.

If someone would have told me that in a country where the people are so passionate about sports, there is a sports complex that is on its way to ruin even though its never been used, I would have had a hard time believing.
But, this is Jamaica today – a place where truth is much stranger than fiction.

Organisers of the many of the development track meets being held inside the Corporate Area this season are being confronted with the challenge of finding an appropriate venue to host their events.

The situation is that the track at the Stadium East and the one inside the National Stadium are being repaired as they have become badly worn from ‘overuse’.

Jamaica is a track and field nation. We have a flood of meets at the start of each outdoor season and we have the largest high school track meet in the world.

This year we have come to realise that the tracks have become worn; the two at the stadium complex and the other at the GC Foster College.

This weekend the Queens/Grace Jackson meet will be held under trying circumstances because the national stadium will be shared with a Jehovah Witness Convention that had been booked for the weekend.

Why did it come to this? Why did we not have an alternative venue, a suitable alternative venue to host a meet where most of our senior athletes, the very best in the world, will start their seasons?

The leaders of government and the sport, in my opinion, still see sport a only recreation and not a business. With the success of our athletes this country has leverage to accomplish many things.

Each year more and more international athletes are seeking to visit Jamaica to train even as winter maintains its strangehold in their respective homelands.

For these countries the cost to lay a running track is relatively miniscule and is something we could have negotiated years ago had we the foresight. We need to start seeing sport as business and not only as recreation. Should we start doing that we can use the leverage that our athletes have given us to have better facilities for our athletes to train, better facilities which we can use to develop our young athletes, and better facilities which we can use as lure to attract athletes from overseas as well as their families to come here to spend their winters training and living in tropical sunshine.
What have now are broken down palaces, that limit our opportunities for growth in the respective sports and are nothing short of a national disgrace.

I dont  know why, but some people in this country forget that the name of the sport in Track and Field, not Track and definitely not Sprints.
But that is the way we behave; as if the sprints are the other thing that matters. But the people who do the field events deserve the attention too.
Dorian Scott, a 20-metre shot putter, who missed the Olympics through injury, is perhaps Jamaica’s best thrower ever, but he is treated like an outcast. Travis Smikle last year became the first Jamaican thrower in more than 80 years to win a medal in global competition, when he secured a bronze medal at the World Youth Championships in Italy yet you never see hardly see his name in the papers like you would a Dexter Lee.
Jamaica currently sits on a gold mine of potential world-beating throwers and all they need is a little attention and support.
Yet, as journalists all we want to do is focus on the stars and not those who could become stars. We have become such fans of our sprinters we forget that there are other disciplines within the sport.
The administrators also have short-changed the throwers and field events people. Smikle, for example, sources said, was almost left off that team to Italy last year. If he had been, Jamaica would have come home with one medal instead of two, 50 per cent of our medal count.
Isn’t it time then for us to recognise that throwers should get some pride of place.
Last weekend I watched a talented bunch of young men throw at the Big Shot Invitational at the St Hugh’s High School and seen that there is a lot of talent just waiting to be developed into world beaters, but somehow you get the feeling that those who really should care really don’t.
But it has to change.
It would be an injustice of monumental proportions if kids like Ashinia Miller, Randale Watson, Chad Wright, Smikle, Canniga Raynor, Oshane Harris, and girls like Candicea Bernard and Vanessa Levy, are not given the opportunity to be the best they can be.
Like the sprinters they want to represent and make Jamaica proud so why are they being afforded the opportunity to do so on a level playing field?
Sport should not always be only about the glamour, it should more oftentimes be about the substance as well.

There has been much debate since the selection of Brigette Foster Hylton as Female Athlete of the Year; was she the right choice? I say she was.
For the first time in our long and storied history on Track and Field Jamaica had three world champions to choose from and those choices could not have been easy.
Shelly Ann Fraser, the Beijing Olympic 100 metre champion did even better in Berlin. In Beijing the pint-sized sprinter clocked 10.78, the fastest time in the world to win that title. In Berlin, she was even faster, taking the world title in 10.73, eclipsing Ottey’s national record of 10.74.

 Fraser was also a member of the gold-medal winning 4×100 metres relay team.

Melaine Walker could also have easily been the choice too. After setting a new Olympic record in winning gold in Beijing, she came to Berlin in even better form, winning over the favoured Lashinda Demus in 52.42s, the second fastest time in history.
Foster Hylton, however, did something that neither Fraser nor Walker, managed last season. She became the first, the very first sprint hurdler in Jamaica’s history to win a gold medal at a global event.
She also did it after returning from retirement. The attractive wife of Patrick Hylton, the CEO of the National Commercial Bank, having stepped away out of the frustration of failing to win a medal in Beijing, was perhaps looking at finally starting a family, but was convinced to return by her coach Stephen Francis. And even when she did return, coaxed into giving it one last shot, she did not look as convincing leading up to the world championships.
Yes, she was in the thick of things in most of the races she ran leading up to the world championships, but going into Berlin, Foster Hylton was not even considered a medal contender.
The American Dawn Harper, who surprised the world by winning gold in Beijing, was favoured to win again and based on what she did in the semi-finals, it seemed that she would once again relegate Foster Hylton to the minor placings; sending the Jamaican back into retirement well short of her career goals.
We all saw what happened next.

Brigette did not lose a race after Berlin, seven straight wins, including the World Athletics Finals, dipping below 12.50 seconds a few times in the process.
Fraser lost several times to American Carmelita Jeter and looked a tired athlete as the season wound down. Foster who is older by a decade, looked refreshed and rejuvenated, confident that she was the best sprint hurdler in the world, and that’s why she deserved to be the female athlete of the year.

Justin Gatlin shared the 100 metre world record for a very short time with Asafa Powell before he was banned in 2006 for testing positive for elevated levels of testosterone. He makes a return to the track just over six months from now and already he has started to talk about challenging world record holder Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and his countryman Tyson Gay on the track.

Gatlin has obviously been away too long because there are several things that he has obviously not yet taken into consideration.

When Gatlin clocked 9.77 in Doha, it made him the joint fastest man in the world at that time. Since then Powell, his main nemesis then, lowered his personal best to 9.74 (the world record that Usain Bolt broke) and eventually to 9.72s.
Bolt came along in May 2008 and amazed the world with a 9.76s clocking in Jamaica and then 9.72 in New York later that same month.

Bolt would smash that record in Beijing and smash it again in Berlin this past August. As of August 2009, Bolt is officially .19 seconds faster than Gatlin has ever run, even faster .27 if you consider Gatlin’s best legal time of 9.85s since his 9.77 record has been stripped.

Powell and Gay, too, are .13 and .14 faster as well. If Gatlin and Bolt should race at their best, then Gatlin would be about the distance Powell finished behind Bolt in Berlin, a city block and a half.

But will it even come to that? Gatlin is not even certain to get a chance to race against the world’s best sprinters. Like Englishman Dwayne Chambers, Gatlin may be overlooked as the Diamond League gets underway this season. Meet organisers, especially those in Europe, are not inclined to invite Gatlin because they do not want the press about the meet to be about the drug-tainted American. In a time of recession, who needs the negative publicity?

As it turns out Gatlin may only get to race against Bolt et al in South Korea in 2011 and again in 2012, and that is if he makes the top three in the sprints in his own country.

Gatlin has not raced competitively in more than three years and at a US trials he would be up against a healthy Tyson Gay, a healthy and focussed Walter Dix, Mike Rodgers, and perhaps a few new threats to Tyson Gay’s crown.
Life is not going to be easy for Justin Gatlin when he returns. I would suggest that he learns to creep once more before he starts thinking about running with lightning.

There are no major championships to look forward to next year but 2010 is expected to be an exciting year in track and field nonetheless.

Most of our major stars of track and field have not yet committed to the Commonwealth Games, which having been scheduled for October, looks certain to go ahead without many of the sport’s major draws who will by then be preparing for Daegu in 2011.

However, long before that are the indoor meets that will see at least two Jamaicans participating – Veronica Campbell Brown and Ricardo Chambers.

Campbell Brown under new coach Anthony Carpenter will be venturing back indoors after a six-year hiatus. For her it is as good a time as any to be back. She will need lots of time to adjust to whatever new programs Carpenter will have her on and there is nothing like competition to work out the kinks.

VCB knows she has fallen behind in the sprints and will have to refocus and relaunch to get back among the medal contenders in the 100 metre sprint.

Beset by injury thoughout the last season, VCB will be looking to rebound strongly, building momentum going into 2011.

Chambers, the national 400 metre champion, also had a challenging 2009 season. Allergies derailed any attempt he had planned to make at a medal at the world championships in Berlin.

His goals for this coming season include winning a world indoor medal at the World Indoor Championships in March and he also hopes to break Roxbert Martin’s 12-year-old national 400 metre record.

Armed now with the experience of how to control the allergies that messed him up this past season, Chambers should be a much stronger and better 400 metre runner when he emerges this coming season.

2010 is also a year when we expect to see Yohan Blake emerge even further as a world class sprinter. After his 9.93s clocking in Rome, the world waited to see what Blake was going to bring to the world championships in Berlin but that was not to be thanks to the Methyhexamine scandal that truncated his promising season.

Now that he has served his three-month ban arising from that situation, track and field fans will no doubt be eager to see what Blake brings to the track in 2010.

2010 will also witness the dawn of the new Diamond League that replaces the Golden League. We get to see just how it plays out, we get to see what happens with the lesser athletes and most importantly, we get to see what happens when the elite of the elite clash.

Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell will do battle at least three times this coming season and those races can’t come fast enough. Will Bolt break his world records in amazing fashion once more? Can Tyson Gay take Bolt, who has not lost in two years? Or, will Asafa Powell overtake them both and regain his place atop the heap of world’s greatest sprinters?

Yes, the Diamond League is going to be worth watching this coming season.

But the Diamond League is not only going to be about Bolt, Gay and Powell. The women are going to make some noise too.
Shelly Ann Fraser, Kerron Stewart and Carmelita Jeter are going to resume their electric clashes, and when you throw in a healthy Sherone Simpson, a determined Lauryn Williams, Muna Lee, and perhaps VCB into the mix, what you get are mother-watering battles in the female sprints like the world has never seen.

And how could I forget Melaine Walker aiming to break the world record in the 400 metre hurdles even while inflicting further mental damage to sore loser American Lashinda Demus.

The 400 metre battles between Jeremy Wariner and Leshawn Merritt are also sure to be tantaliszing.

Locally, Champs celebrates 100 years and that too is shaping up to be special as defending champions Kingston, Calabar, Jamaica College, Wolmer’s (under new coach Paul Francis), and St. Jago resume their intense rivalries at the national stadium the week before Easter.

We also get to see what surprises Jazeel Murphy is going to spring on us this coming season.

On the women’s side Holmwood, Manchester, Vere and all the usual suspects will be make Champs for this coming season, a must-see event.

And of course, there are going to be some real surprises as there are sure to be a handful of athletes who are going to raise eyebrows and grab the attention of the world of track and field.

So, what are we waiting for bring on 2010. Please.