MONTEGO BAY, St James — Brilliant performances from a number of athletes led by Olympic relay gold medallist Kemar Bailey-Cole and Central Americas and Caribbean Games hurdles bronze medallist Andrea Bliss threatened to upstage a successful return to the track by World Champion Yohan Blake at Saturday’s fifth all-comers meet put on by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) at the National Stadium.

Bailey-Cole ran a personal best 9.96 seconds pushed by a wind of 1.5 metres per second, the second best time by a Jamaican man behind the 9.95 second set by double World Record holder Usain Bolt in an IAAF Diamond League race in Rome earlier in the week, while Bliss rolled back the clock with a vintage performance of 12.91 seconds, her second best ever and second best by a Jamaican woman this year so far.

With the JAAA/Supreme Ventures National Senior Championships that will select the Jamaica team to the IAAF World Championships in Moscow in August set for next weekend, athletes are stepping up their preparations for what is expected to be yet another four days of outstanding competition.

The decent crowd that was on hand at the National Stadium on Saturday, however, saw Blake return to the track after an eight-week break due to a hamstring injury suffered at the UTech Classic on April 13 to beat IAAF World Junior Champion Delano Williams 20.72 seconds to 20.74 seconds running into a 0.1m/s wind.

Blake, who is expected to defend the men’s 100m gold medal he won at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea two years ago and double sprint silver medals he won in London at the Olympic Games last year, came off the bend in the lead on Saturday, running out of lane six but just managed to hold off the late charging Williams as Edino Steele was third in 20.91 seconds.

Blake later tweeted that he “felt rusty”, but thanked God for finishing the race.

He had pulled up while running a 100m race at the UTech Classic in April, and despite saying later the injury was not so bad and was “just a cramp”, two days later his coach Glen Mills had told members of the media that the injury was worse than first thought and he would miss six weeks.

Bailey-Cole, who anchored the Jamaican team in the first round of the 4x100m relay in London to earn a gold medal, opened an eye or two with his fast-clocking two weeks out of the National Championships as he surpassed the 9.97 seconds he ran in Brussels last year and well below the 10.09 seconds he ran in the Cayman Islands a month earlier. He is also tied for fourth best in the world so far.

He dragged Olympic 200m bronze medallist Warren Weir to a new personal best 10.02 second, more than three tenths under the 10.51 seconds he had run in 2008. Jason Livermore and Jason Young were both clocked at 10.18 seconds for third.

In the women’s 100m, Schillonie Calvert created a mild upset when she won in 11.17 seconds ahead of Sherone Simpson, her fellow Olympic relay squad member, who ran 11.27 seconds. Both times were season bests.

Bliss ,who had returned to the island two years ago to train with hurdles guru Fitz Coleman, might have set the cat among the pigeons and set up what could be an intriguing women’s sprint hurdles battle at Trials.

With a 1.1m/s wind behind her, Bliss clocked her second fastest time ever, just off her personal best 12.83 seconds set in 2005 and this was the first time under 13.00 since 2009.