HAVING taken Akeem Bloomfield from a 53-second 400m runner to a sub-45-second phenomenon in one year, Kingston College’s (KC’s) head coach Neil Harrison is now targeting the World Championships in August.

Not only will Harrison be lining up Bloomfield against Jamaica’s best this summer, but he also intends to unleash one Twayne Crooks, whom he feels is just as good or even better.

“That’s the intention. They are of quality and I will try as best as possible to see them through,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

Harrison, who moved from Munro College to take over the reins as head coach of KC last year, said Bloomfield is one of his most satisfying projects to coming out of Champs.

“When I came into KC with an injured Bloomfield, I realised that his core was extremely weak and a man with tremendous speed and carrying a weak core is like a time bomb waiting to explode,” he said.

“I explained all of that to Bloomfield. He is a bright boy, he can think for himself and the moment I explained that to him, he knew where I was going and he grasped the concept,” Harrison noted.

Bloomfield burst onto the scene in 2014 with a 10.5 seconds clocking in the 100m at the Jamaica College Invitational Meet. He then did personal bests of 10.42 and 21.06 seconds over the 100m and 200m, respectively, at Champs in Class Two before injury forced an end to his championship and season.

“I started to strengthen his core and told him he is most vulnerable when he is recovering. So let us take away the short sprint for this season and let us concentrate on the longer sprint and I can assure you I will make you do something fantastic,” Harrison revealed.

Harrison continued: “He said, ‘Coach, I really don’t like the event, but you have said some things which I appreciate. Nobody has ever told me anything like this before and, Coach, I am running with it. I am going to grasp it with both hands’ and the rest is pretty much history.”

Bloomfield, in only his second 400m, ran a wonderful 45.41 seconds at the Carifta Games Trials then wrote his name into Champs folklore with a stunning 44.93-second clocking to be the first schoolboy to run under 45 seconds for the 400m.

“When you see that kind of performance, knowing you work on a project like that…I told him he was going to run 44. I told him at Carifta he was going to run 45. I said, when you get a stronger field come Champs, you will run 44. When I told him he would run 45, he said Coach are you serious?” Harrison said.

“I said, just follow my instructions. Just run past everybody and go about your business and you will be fine. If you shut off, I will take responsibility for i, and you will not because you are well-prepared,” Harrison added.

“At Champs, I told him, the same thing. I told him give Nathon Allen no respect. Just go about your business, and he followed the instructions.”

Allen finished second in a splendid 45.3 seconds with his teammate Martin Manley, the 2013 World Youth 400m champion, in third with 46.41. KC’s Twayne Crooks was fourth with 46.54 seconds.

“There is no doubt in my mind that there was two 44 (seconds) athletes in that race, Twayne Crooks. He was the sacrificial lamb because he had to carry the work load for Kingston College,” revealed Harrison.

“When you are trying to win a championship you have to sacrifice somebody and all we wanted was to get the points scored. It was a bit painful, he (Crooks) understood and he said, Coach, ‘I will do it for the school’, a lauded effort,” reflected Harrison.

“He said ‘Coach, I really want to step with Bloomfield, but I will do it for the team’ and I wholeheartedly thanked him for that,” Harrison added.

Crooks, 19, a transfer from Vere Technical, was seen as the number one quarter-miler at KC before Champs. He is a wonderful 200m and 800m runner with a very good 1:51-minute relay leg at Gibson while leading KC to victory at Gibson McCook Relays in record time.

Crooks ran the 200m, 400m 4×100 and 4x400m during Champs, while the fresher Bloomfield ran the 400m and the relays.

A week after Bloomfield logged 45.41 seconds to announce himself to the world, Crooks stopped the clock at 45.93 seconds.

“Crooks is the number one. Comparably, when you look at the times in training, his times pretty much supersede Bloomfield’s. The difference between the two is that Bloomfield is much quicker, but Crooks has what we call speed endurance. But Bloomfield’s endurance has developed as we went along. It would have been interesting to see if they were only running 400s what would have happened,” said Harrison.

Bloomfield has since added the Carifta Games Under-20 400m title to his growing list in 45.85 seconds.