I hope it doesn’t rain on the National Track and Field Championships this weekend because I am hoping to see some good performances from some of our less famous athletes who now have a chance to make a name for themselves.

We all know by now that some of our biggest stars will not be at these championships that are being held to select teams to the NACAC Under-23 Championships in Mirmar, Florida, the CAC Games in Puerto Rico and of course, the Commonwealth Games in India this October.

Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell Brown, Kerron Stewart and several other stars will not be there, but Asafa Powell will, and Sherone Simpson and perhaps Jermaine Gonzales, and Ramone McKenzie, who I am eager to see now that he has turned professional and training with Lance Braumann in Clermont, Florida.

Sometimes things happen for good reason and opportunities open up for athletes who need the work. Simpson, for example, the defending Commonwealth Games 200-metre champion, still not certain about attending the games which start in October. If she does well at the trials, however, she will at least have the option of delaying her decision but at least she would have qualified.

Simpson has been working her way back to the wonderful form she had in 2006 when she had the top eight fastest times in the world in the 100m including a world’s best 10.82s, and two of the fastest times over the 200 metres (22.00). Two knee surgeries though have destabilized the knee so she hopes to get it strong enough so she will be able to run like the wind at the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea next year.

She has recovered from an injury she picked up in Korea earlier this season and we hope we will see her at her best come Saturday.

McKenzie has shown much promise since his days at Calabar and we now get to see in what ways he has improved as he tries to make one of the teams being selected to represent Jamaica this season.

Of course, the biggest reason I want the rain to stay away this weekend is because Asafa Powell, former world record holder in the men’s 100-metre sprint, has announced that he wants to run a ‘complete race’ as he chases Bolt’s seemingly impregnable world record of 9.58s. It will be interesting to see if he can pull it off or at least get close.

With Bolt not at his best this season and just coming off an Achilles tendon injury and with Gay, the second fastest man all time, nursing a sore hamstring, Powell has stolen the spotlight so far this season, running incredible times including a speedy 9.82-second run in Rome after experiencing a horrible start.

Powell is leaner and stronger this season and as we all have come to know by now, runs his best races in the middle and near the end of the season.

The defending Commonwealth Men’s sprint champion could make a serious assault on Bolt’s record but how close he goes will depend on how agreeable the conditions are.

Last but not least, we hope we get to see Gonzales, who just over a week ago clocked a personal best 44.79 seconds at the Sotteville Athletisima in France.

It should be interesting to see if he can go even lower as he finally gets the chance to fulfill his immense potential.

Is it just me, or is Veronica Campbell Brown packing some real mean muscle these days? VCB, one of the fiercest competitors in the sport, ran an impressive, world-leading 21.98s in winning the 200 metres over her main rival Allyson Felix at the Adidas Grand Prix in the New York leg of the IAAF Diamond League last Saturday, June 12.
The win and the time is a clear signal that VCB is well on her way to making herself a contender for the gold medal in the 200-metre title at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea next year.
Given her competitive nature it could not have been easy for Veronica Campbell Brown, the defending world champion in the 100m to finish fourth in the event in Berlin in 2009. She finished behind Shelly Ann Fraser, Kerron Stewart and American Carmelita Jeter. The winning time of 10.73s is 0.12seconds faster than VCB’s best.
The two-time Olympic 200-metre champion also failed to win her pet even for the third time running, as Felix defended her World Championship title for the second time.
None of this could have been easy for the woman many now call the queen the track.
Following her relatively poor performances, caused in part by an inflamed toe, VCB adopted a different strategy. Based on what her manager Claude Bryan revealed, VCB recognized that if she was going to remain competitive in the women’s sprints, she is going to have to run faster. She was going to have to be stronger, much stronger.
Carmelita Jeter pretty much created the blueprint following her bronze medal finish in the women’s 100 metres in Osaka in 2007. It was one of the closest finishes in World Championship history. It took several minutes for officials to decide that Veronica Campbell had claimed her first and only 100 metre title as a senior, over American Lauryn Williams and Jeter.
Jeter failed to make Team USA to the Olympics in Beijing for 2008 and late that year went to train with noted American coach John Smith. She emerged in 2009, bigger, stronger and as we all saw near the end of the 2009 season, a lot faster.
At the World Athletic Finals Jeter destroyed her Jamaican rivals clocking 10.64s, the second fastest time ever run by a woman, and following that up with an equally fast 10.67s in China.
VCB may be copying that blueprint. Following the World Championships in Berlin, VCB parted ways with her long-time coach Lance Brauman, hired Anthony Carpenter and set off on a new path to world domination.
She started with the World Indoor 60 metre title in a personal best 7 seconds flat. She attributes her success to better body placement inside the blocks and working on getting out of those blocks better.
What she did not mention was her very apparent focus on adding more muscle power.
At the Jamaica International Invitational, her thighs bulged with new power. Those piston-like thighs seemed even bigger and more powerful at the Adidas Grand Prix.
We eagerly await what she will bring to the table for the remainder of this season and then in 2011 and beyond.

Tyson Gay nurses a tight hammy

It’s interesting to note the number of injuries being sustained by some of the world’s best athletes during this year when there is no major competition but a year that marks the inaugural season of the Diamond League.
So far, for the most part, the Diamond League has not lived up to expectation. We have seen remarkable runs from Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Carmelita Jeter and this past weekend by Allyson Felix and Veronica Campbell Brown, but besides the latter two meeting up at the last meeting in New York, there have been few marquee match-ups of note. Bolt and Gay were to have met in New York but injury put paid to that possibility as both Bolt and Gay, the two fastest men in history are recovering from injury – Bolt, a swollen Achilles tendon and Gay, a tight hamstring.
Besides the head-to-head between Bolt and Gay, many fans of the sport, including myself, were looking forward to the head-to-heads between Jeter and Jamaica’s Kerron Stewart. Since Jeter assumed dominance of the women’s short sprint since late last year, the only sprinter that seems likely to break her unbeaten run was the powerful Stewart, who without any speed work, ran Jeter to the line at the National Stadium at the Jamaica International Invitational on May 1; 10.94s to 10.96s. That race had set up the possibility of some tantalizing clashes between the two female speedsters during the course of the season, but on the weekend at the Sotteville Athletisima in France, Stewart suffered a hamstring tear while running the 200 metres and seems set to miss at least six weeks. Word is she might even opt to skip the entire season – the reason being that she could possibly use the remainder of the season to properly recover and then start preparing for the World Championships in Daegu in 2011.
Of course, there are other battles to behold on the track and in the field – the javelin, the 800 metres, male and female; the long distance runs, the shot put, high jump, long and triple jump, but the blue riband events are the sprints. The fastest men and women on the planet are who hold sway.
Hopefully, we will see some worthwhile clashes as the summer rolls on as Bolt has resumed training, and Gay will hopefully be healthy soon. Of course, they will be going up against the man who is stealing the thunder right now – Asafa Powell, who has been running really fast this season, going four for four in the 100m and with a season best time of 9.82, despite a very slow start in his last race in Rome.
Had he had his usual reaction time of between 0.154 and 0.120, his time in Rome could have easily been 9.7x or faster.
For the sake of the Diamond League here’s wishing that everybody returns to full health soon because a successful season sets things up for an even bigger year next year.

All season long I had been saying to myself that Usain Bolt didn’t seem quite himself. He is still winning every race he runs, yes, but he wasnt winning with the level of dominance that we saw in 2008 and 2009.
The thing is we have been spoiled by the high standards Bolt sets for himself. When he ran the 19.56s over the 200 metres at the national stadium on May 1, I found myself thinking that he could have gone faster as opposed to recognizing that the time was the fourth fastest in history and that only he, and one other man – Michael Johnson – had ever gone faster.
He then went to Daegu where his 9.86s 100-metre run didnt look all that impressive. He really worked hard for that time but because he has shown us 9.58s, we have come to believe that he needs to approach that time every time he steps onto the track.
He then drops 19.76s over the 200 metres in Shanghai and again I was not satisfied. Again, he seemed to be working too hard and failed to get that unbelievable separation from the mortals he was competing against.
Then yesterday after clocking 30.97s over the rarely run 300 metres and failing to break Michael Johnson’s standard of 30.85  that was run in Pretoria at altitude 10 years ago, Bolt finally confirmed my suspicions. “I am not in the same shape I was in in 2008 and in 2009,” he said, still breathing heavily from the effort. “I’m done.”
All season long Bolt has been saying that he plans to take it easy this year. He plans to break no records, only do what is required to win.

It should be interesting to see how this relative lack of fitness from Bolt plays out when he goes head to head with both Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell, who look really sharp this year and are aiming to topple Bolt, even if it is for just one race.

Those races are going to be fun to watch, the anticipation palpable, because now that we know what we know, we are forced to acknowledge that there is no certainty that Bolt will win. Drama.

For the remainder of this season, its not Bolt against the clock, its Bolt against the two other fastest men in history. Superman has taken off his cape and returned to the ranks of the mortals and that is the kind of drama track and field needs.

Usain Bolt recently suggested that if he is going to be beaten this would be the year for his rivals to think about doing it.
After seeing Tyson Gay run an amazing 19.41 second run over the 200-metre straight in Manchester on Sunday, it just might happen.
The time Gay ran broke the decades-old existing record set by American sprint great Tommie Smith who ran 19.5 seconds on a cinder track.
The 200-metre straight is harder to run because there is no curve to slingshot off and the runner really doesn’t know how to pace himself sprinting along the straight.
When Bolt set a new world’s best over the rarely 150 in Manchester last year, his 100m split was 9.91s. Gay’s 100-metre split yesterday was 9.88s and at 150 14.41, not far off Bolt’s 14.35s.
Gay has shown that he is not intimidated by Bolt’s amazing speed. Instead of intimidating him, Bolt’s prowess has only served to motivate Gay to try and achieve higher levels of performance.
Ultimately there might be a limit to what Gay can accomplish physically but that wont stop him from trying. On Sunday in Manchester you saw evidence that Bolt will have to be close to his very best to keep Gay at bay this year. Both sprinters are set to meet a few times in both the 100 metres and the 200 metres. Those races are already promising to be special.
At the Jamaica International Invitational on May 1, after clocking 19.56s to win the 200 metre run – the fourth fastest time ever – Bolt said he had no interest in setting records this season. This is a season to take it easy, he said. Next year the World Championships come up in Daegu South Korea and those games are followed by the Olympics in London in 2012. Those events are where Bolt has his focus for the time being.
I would suggest that he not look too far ahead as even though he has no plans to break records this year, he just might find that he has to if he is to remain unbeaten.

The inaugural Diamond League got off to a fiery start last Friday in Doha. Former world record holder and World Championship bronze medallist Asafa Powell threw down the gauntlet to Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt with two very quick 100-metre dashes 9.75s (2.6m/s) and 9.81 (2.3m/s) while not even breaking a sweat.

Sure, the times were aided by over-the-limit winds but when you consider that Powell barely exerted any effort, it is plain to see that he is already in shape to run under 9.70 seconds this season.

Powell has taken a beating from Bolt and Gay on the track over the past two years and from members of the public who have lost patience with his inability to win a major championship but there are signs that Powell will return to relevance this season and in the years to come.

For the first time in a long while Powell has managed to start the season with suffering any major injury.

He looked decent at a couple of development meets and show some raw speed running a 200m in the rain at the Utech Classic. Over the first 8o metres of that race was perhaps the quickest I have ever seen him.

He was sharp and his cadence was incredible. Word is that he is also a lot stronger this year. Evidence of that strength is floating around in cyberspace in the form of a video of Asafa clocking a 31.60-second 300-metre run. To put that in perspective Michael Johnson’s personal best is 30.88s I believe.

Yes, Asafa looks set to run fast this year. He has said that he feels he can surpass Bolt’s world record of 9.58s. With no major championships on the agenda this year I expect to see Asafa make a full scale assault on Bolt’s record even while exacting some measure of revenge on Tyson Gay surpassing him to reclaim his spot as the second fastest man ever.

It’s not going to be easy but I don’ t believe that is going to stop him from trying.

Whether or not he can reclaim the title of fastest man we eagerly await the answer to that question.

All I know its going to be fun finding out.

As I walked towards the National Stadium last week Saturday from Roosevelt Avenue, an hour before the Jamaica National Jamaica International Invitational was scheduled to get underway, I began to notice the significant numbers of people heading in the same direction.
It was about then that I began to estimate that this year’s meet was going to be well attended. I was thinking perhaps 10-15 thousand people were going to be at the national stadium to watch Usain Bolt, Carmelita Jeter, Kerron Stewart and a host of other world class athletes perform.
But even with my expectations of 15,000, my jaw still hit the floor once I climbed the stairs and walked into the grandstand. There were already 15,000 people there and another 15,000 outside waiting to get in!
Sure, we have seen the stadium full for track meets before – the final day of Champs, the World Youth Championships in 2002, but there had never been a crowd like this at a senior track meet. Never.
And they were not disappointed. There clash between Kerron Stewart (10.96) and 2009’s fastest woman, the lovely Carmelita Jeter (10.94)  lived up to expectations as the race went right down to the wire. Nesta Carter also impressed in the men’s 100 metres with a very good 10.09s. Clearly, he is going to run very fast this year. It was such a pity we did not get to see Yohan Blake as he false started and was eliminated.

American Chuante Howard was incredible in clearing a two metres to easily win the women’s high jump. It was heartening to see the crowd support her as she jumped higher and higher.

 Christian Cantwell also threw a world-leading 21.5 metres to win the shot putt.

And to top that all off, local super athlete Usain Bolt clocked the fourth fastest 200 metres in history when he won the 200 metre run in a mind-boggling 19.56 seconds. Any true track fan could not have asked for more.
It was such a pity Asafa Powell, Shelly Ann Fraser and Shericka Williams were not there but the show went on and went on well. In truth they were not missed.
Kudos to the JAAA and the organising committee for putting on such a wonderful show. The meet has definitely grown and evolved into a truly high-quality international meeting.
The JAAA are planning bigger things for the future and I am wishing them the best of luck because if this is a taste of what could be coming in the future, then I cant wait and neither can Jamaica.

Jamaica has been blessed with an abundance of athletic talent. It is however cursed with some pretty petty leaders.
Here we have a situation where the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) have this ongoing impasse with the leadership of the MVP track club, an organisation blessed with some of Jamaica’s most talented athletes.
This impasse has led to embarrassing fall outs at both the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and again at the World Athletic Championships in Berlin a year later.
Still there is not visible sign that a resolution is anywhere on the horizon.
In all of this, the athletes who have been very silent, are the ones who are suffering. They are the ones who lose face when their coach makes his embarrassment moves, and who lose face when members of the public perceives them of being greedy and not keen of representing their country when nothing could be farther from the truth.
The situation has become so toxic that Delano Franklyn, noted attorney and Chairman of the Asafa Powell Foundation in a recent lecture  delivered at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel entitled Sport in Jamaica: A Local and International Perspective, in making recommendations for the improvements in governance of the sport, suggested that for the sport to move forward, said “The management of the JAAA and the MVP Track Club, in the interest of the sport, in the interest of the athletes and in the interest of Jamaica, need to sit down, put hubris and idiosyncracies aside and work out their differences.”
We dont know if both sides were listening but here on the eve of the Jamaica International Invitational will be without the best of the MVP athletes.
A couple of weeks ago when the meet was being announced, two hours before the announcement was to be made of which athletes-  local and international - would be participating, Meet Director Donald Quarrie announced that MVP had withdrawn their athletes from the meet citing scheduling conflicts or something of the sort. However, that conflict in scheduling would not affect Michael Frater and Nesta Carter, athletes, who it seems, refuse to be caught in the crossfire between the feuding leadership.
Then, a week later Olympic 100 metre silver medallist Sherone Simpson declared that she was interested in participating at the JII.
However, when MVP declared their athletes unavailable, replacements were sought and found. Simpson now finds that she is unable to get a lane because the one that she would have had, has now gone to someone else.
This is such a tragedy for one of Jamaica’s most beloved athletes and now she will miss out on another opportunity to perform before an audience that love her so much.
Meet Director Donald Quarrie made this revelation on my show Sportsnation Live on Nationwide90fm on Wednesday.
In time what has happened to Simpson could affect the other athletes from the MVP camp, which is unjust.
The athletes are not pawns to be used in some ridiculous game of ego and one-up-manship being played by the leaders of both entities.
It needs to stop. If the big men feel the need to fight like boys, they need to understand that athletes cannot be the collateral damage in this childish polarising fight.

When Americans began doping in earnest back in the 1950s, it was in response to the institutionalized doping that was in full stride in East Germany and Russia.
The Eastern Bloc countries produced a long line of superhuman athletes – female athletes especially that established records that might not be broken for another century.
But you have to hand it to the Americans; they always have to be the best so it was just a matter of time before they were engaged in not only producing the world’s best super athletes but they were also engaged in some of the greatest levels of hypocrisy in terms of sports, the world has ever seen.
During the 1980s, US athletes, especially athletes like Carl Lewis were most vocal about other countries whose athletes were doping.
That was until Dr Wade Exum revealed that Lewis and hundreds of other athletes, US athletes, were allowed to compete in international competition despite having failed drug test after drug test.
My sources had told me back in 1988 that Lewis was not alone. According to what I was told more than two decades ago, several top flight US star athletes tested positive in the lead up to the Seoul Olympics. Those athletes included Lewis, who failed not one, but three drug tests that year, but were still allowed to compete in Seoul.
After the Berlin Wall fell and for the most part the extremely high levels of doping in track and field, the US assumed the lead in producing athletes that were capable of performances that would cause jaws to drop.
The rest of the world fell to its knees at the might of the US track and field programme all the while not recognising that their own fall was not that far away.
Enter Victor Conte, who blew the lid off the incredibly high levels of doping that permeated not just track and field but US sport on a whole. Some of the biggest track stars were exposed. The list read like a who’s who. Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Regina Jacobs, Kelli White, Alvin and Calvin Harrison, Justin Gatlin, and many others, were either forced into retirement and had their international gold medals stripped.
All the while, track and field suffered the most as star after star after star were proven to be cheaters.
Over the past two years Usain Bolt and several others including Yelena Isinbeyeva, Allyson Felix, Shelly Ann Fraser, and Veronica Campbell Brown have helped take track and field off life-support and given it legs to walk on its own once more.
That was until World and Olympic 400 metre champion Lashawn Merritt admitted this week that he had failed three drug tests and has accepted a provisional suspension.
According to Merriit, he ‘foolishly’ had been taking an over-the-counter male enhancement drug for the past couple of years. That product it seemed contained DHEA, a substance that appears on the World Anti-Doping Association’s list of prohibited substances.
This is a sickening blow to a sport that barely has a pulse in the United States. The timing also could not have been worse.
The Penn Relays conclude today in Pennsylvania and the world’s fastest man is anchoring a Jamaican team running against the ‘mighty’ USA. It should have been a celebration of the resurgence of the sport but in the back of the minds of everyone who watches that race today is the fact that yet another American track star has been found to be less than honest.
“I am disgusted by this entire episode,” USA Track & Field (USATF) chief executive Doug Logan said in a statement.
You know what Doug, the rest of the world is too.

Tyson Gay, the man considered my many to be Usain Bolt’s main threat clocked an impressive 44.89 seconds running a 400 metres in Florida over the weekend. Gay, already one of the best combination sprinters of all time with personal bests of 10.69s, 19.58 and now 44.89, is now looking to perhaps spring a surprise on triple Olympic medallist/triple World Champion Usain Bolt when the two meet during the inaugural season of the Diamond League that starts on May 14 in Doha.
The two fastest men of all time are set to meet at least three times this season over the 100 metres and perhaps twice more over the 200 metres.
Does this 44.89s make him a greater threat to Bolt? I dont think so. The strength displayed by Gay in Florida over the weekend, I feel, put him in position to perhaps challenge Michael Johnson’s American record of 19.32, but that still leaves him more than .10 seconds off Usain Bolt’s personal best of 19.19s that was achieved at the World Championships in Berlin last year after eight rounds of competition.
Bolt is a freak of nature that many including myself believe is capable of challenging the 19-second barrier if running fresh.
He has revealed that for the past five weeks he has been training hard and well so there is no reason to believe that he wont be faster this season when there is no major competition for him to worry about.
What it boils down to is that Gay could push Bolt over the 200m but pushing him and being able to defeat him are two different things entirely as the world and Gay will find out as the Diamond League 2010 season unfolds.