AFTER his brilliant work at the weekend’s JAAA/Supreme Ventures National Junior Championships at the National Stadium, Calabar High’s Michael O’Hara is full of confidence for the Eighth IAAF World Youth Championships to be held in Donetsk, Ukraine, from July 10-14.

O’Hara ran a world youth leading 10.39 seconds in the 100m and a joint world leading 20.75.

“It was a good weekend,” said O’Hara in an interview with the Jamaica Observer on Sunday, a massive understatement, as he lowered his previous personal bests in both events.

O’Hara and Wolmer’s Girls’ Jonielle Smith won Under-18 sprint doubles at the weekend’s two-day trials and along with sprint hurdler Yanique Thompson, who lowered her own world youth leading time in the 100m hurdles to 13.23 seconds, are expected to head the list of athletes which should be released tomorrow.

The selection committee was due to meet yesterday to name the team and ratification is expected to be completed by today.

O’Hara said he was not expecting to have run so fast so soon, still three weeks from the start of the competition.

Asked if he was surprised by anything he did on the weekend, O’Hara said. “The timing was very surprising for me…the 200m time, I was expecting to run 21.00 seconds, but the field was very competitive and I had to dig in and pull through.”

On a cool Sunday afternoon after a quick but heavy shower of rain driven by fierce winds forced a near hour-long break, O’Hara blew away a strong field in almost still conditions of 0.1m/s wind to equal the time set by Cuban Reynier Mena earlier this month, beating his previous personal best 21.06 seconds set in March.

He came off the bend in front and ran away from the field, later saying he had executed the race plan to perfection. “The plan was to power the first 30m and to maintain through the straight,” he explained before adding: “I expect to run faster, but that will come from training.”

On Saturday’s first day he clocked 10.39 seconds (1.0m/s wind) to beat Wassem Williams and Odane Bernard in the 100m final, lowering his personal best from 10.49 seconds and looks set to become the third Jamaican man to win the 100m at the World Youth Championships after Dexter Lee in 2007 in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and Odail Todd in 2011 in Lille, France.

Interestingly, O’Hara says his favourite event is the 110m hurdles where his best time achieved in March is 13.45 seconds, but he will bypass that event come World Youth Championships.

Looking back on his outstanding season, O’Hara noted that with the exception of his bout of chicken pox that kept him out of the Carifta Games in The Bahamas, his season has been a good one so far.

O’Hara was a triple individual gold medallist at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ Championships in March, capturing the 100m in 10.56 seconds; the 200m in a windaided 20.65 seconds, and the 110m hurdles in 13.45 seconds, amassing 27 points to win the overall boys’ champion and Class Two champion.

He also won the sprint double at the Carifta Trials earlier, but was unable to compete at the annual regional championships.