Roxroy Cato, the fastest Jamaican male intermediate hurdler so far this year, has high hopes and big plans and promises that this Olympic year will be “something special”.

There is a new confidence in the normally quiet, soft-spoken, former Grange Hill and Green Island High student, who is not afraid to describe himself as “one of the best 400m hurdlers in the world right now”.

After running a season’s-best 48.98 seconds for second place to his training partner Johnny Dutch, at the first JN Racers Grand Prix at the National Stadium two Saturdays ago, Cato was brimming with confidence and told the

Jamaica Observer he felt he was on the verge of a big breakthrough.

“This year is going to be something special,” he gushed. “My coach and I are working closely, meet by meet; we are not rushing anything,” said Cato, who failed to get past the first round in both the 2012 Olympic Games in London and last year’s IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China.

His training is geared for later in the season, he said, and up to the Racers Grand Prix he said they were “still in the process of strength training, still in the process of strength endurance, no speed yet, just working on the technical aspects of the race”.

Come the end of the month and the JAAA Olympic Trials, Cato thinks he can come close to or beat his personal best, 48.48 seconds, set at the 2014 Senior Trials.

“Honestly, right now I am feeling really good compared to last year when I was struggling to break 49 seconds and I am injury free and know exactly where I am just now,” he proclaimed.

After being beaten by Dutch’s world leading 48.10 seconds, Cato laughed when he said: “I was hoping for a better lane so I could give him a better contest.”

That he feels he can challenge the best in the world comes from training with a group of top intermediate hurdlers including Dutch, Bahamian Jeffrey Gibson — the bronze medallist at the World Championships last year, and Bershawn Jackson, the seventh-fastest 400m hurdler of all times.

He described Jackson as “a close friend, a mentor, one of the persons guiding me in the event right now”.

Working out with them every day, he says, helps him to “build confidence, it lets me know where I am as a hurdler. I believe that I am one of the best in the world right now”.

Cato told the Observer: “In training I am not just keeping up with them, but I am beating them and that helps to build my confidence and helps me to understand the 400m hurdles race better and better.”