On the 30th of June 2018, a young Christopher Taylor sprinted his way into the National Junior record books. His 100m time of 10.11 seconds made him the joint fastest Jamaican junior of all time for the event, equalling Yohan Blake’s time set previously at the Carifta games of 2007.

What many may forget is that as brilliant as that run was, he spent a portion of that race in second place. Up to between 50m and 60m, he was trailing a figure on the inside in lane two. This figure was that of Sachin Dennis of St Elizabeth Technical High School.

An injury to Dennis caused him to fall to the track a few metres before the tape. On the evidence of that run, it was fair to say Dennis could probably have won that race had he been able to remain healthy throughout. That was three years ago.

Let us now fast-forward to 2021 where Dennis is making a long-awaited return to the track. Having sat out the better part of two competitive seasons, the young star is now back with a bang! Although his “Champs” winning time of 10.53 seconds isn’t a time to turn heads, his 10.15 seconds last weekend at the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA)/Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Olympic Destiny Series at the National Stadium certainly had that effect.

Punching above his weight against his older counterparts, Dennis lead from gun to tape to come out victor in the race and also overall winner at the meet. His usual bullet-like start saw him establish command of the race from early, and by 40m it was clear who the class act of the field was. He transitioned beautifully and kept extending his lead with every stride.

As brilliant as his performance was, his immediate future appears to be even brighter. For many years I was part of a conversation in which the moot point was that one day a Class One athlete would run a sub-10 seconds for the 100m. I was always sceptical if not doubtful, however, the following analysis will prove that this is more than possible.

1.Dennis has raced sparingly this season. This indicates that for all intents and purposes, Champs was not his main focus. This was likely a preparation meet for a bigger picture (Did someone say Tokyo?) It therefore means a lot more is left in the tank despite establishing a new season’s best and personal best. This was a mini peak before the bigger peak which is to come.

2.That race was run with a wind factor of +1.1. To still be legal, he needs a maximum of +2.0m/s of wind. Assuming he had that at his disposal, this run could easily have knocked off 0.03 seconds (being conservative).

3.He ran in a stadium devoid of the usual “atmosphere” that can spur athletes to do great things. No jam-packed stadium, no points on the line, no title being vied for, no drums or horns blaring, no cheering fans to encourage every stride. With more at stake, the adrenaline factor is enough to shave off another 0.03 seconds from that performance.

4.The fourth factor and second most important factor was that this was a morning run. This 100m was done and dusted by a few minutes after 9:00 am at the latest. Physiologically, is it very difficult to get the body to be operating at maximum capacity after having awoken from sleep a few hours before. One can probably count the few times an athlete has ever run a 100m so early on local soil as that time is normally allotted to the middle- and long-distance events. This same run in the afternoon or late evening when the body is awake for a bit longer and conditions cooler, indicates he could have gone faster still. I will factor that another 0.03 seconds.

5. Top factor is that he has another 5 to 6 weeks of preparation before our local trials. After he gets a bit more training under his belt and fine-tunes with his coach, we can easily assume he’ll go faster still. As for how much, we don’t know…yet. For the purposes of this article, I will assume a factor of 0.03 seconds.

By my mathematics, 10.15 seconds minus 0.03 four times will equate to 10.03 seconds. Should the first point be taken into account and given a similar estimate, that equates to 10.00 seconds even. While this is all theory and it is never so easy in reality, it is showing that things which were not thought possible once upon a time are now on the verge of unfolding right before our very eyes.

As a famous educator once said, “If the procedure is right, the result must be right.” With that being said, can Sachin Dennis, at some point this season, really become the first Jamaican schoolboy to run below 10 seconds for the 100m?