There is sometimes beauty in the broken and for Titans Track Club coach and founder Gregory Little, infusing new life into struggling athletes has become somewhat of a life mission with the two opening days of the National Senior and Junior Championships delivering several chapters in great comeback stories.

Yohan Blake’s impressive 9.85-second victory in the men’s 100m on Friday inside the National Stadium is a tale of triumph through tribulation, and in many respects, represented the renaissance of a once-in-a-generation sprinter, who many, perhaps, gave up on a bit too hastily.

Blake got the better of Jamaica’s newest sprinting headliner Oblique Seville, who played his part in an epic finale with a 9.88-second clocking, with Blake’s protégé and training partner, Ackeem Blake, securing his spot on Jamaica’s 100m World Athletics Championships triad with a 9.93 third-place finish.

It was a result that perhaps only Yohan Blake and his coach would have placed a wager on, but one that Little saw coming. In fact, the coach is convinced that there is quite a bit more in the 32-year-old’s tank.

“I feel really happy for him, he worked really hard to get here. The plan that I have for Yohan is to get him down to 9.7 to 9.8 seconds and so we managed to cross the 9.8-seconds barrier at this championship and hopefully we can move on to the next side of the bridge as the season progresses,” Little told the Jamaica Observer minutes after Blake crossed the line.

Blake’s return may have been the cherry on the cake, but Ackeem Blake’s meteoric progression, Kemar Bailey-Cole’s comeback, and the fact that all five Titans athletes at the Trials posted personal or season’s best times is credit to the work being done by Little and his collaborator Michael Frater, the 2005 World Championships 100m silver medallist.

This was Yohan Blake’s first time running below 9.90 seconds since 2012, stemming a decade of decline for a sprinter that holds the title of the youngest world champion after his gold-medal run in 2011 and is still the second-fastest man in history in the 100m (9.69) and 200m (19.26).

“Last year Blake had a sickness that required surgery, and we realised that was a cause of him not performing as he should last season. Even as the coach, I was puzzled why he hadn’t done 9.8 seconds due to how we had [Jevaughn] Minzie running 10.0 seconds and Jazeel Murphy 10.1 last year, considering that Yohan was ahead of them. So we realised after the championship that he had a sickness and that’s why he had to do the surgery — most people didn’t know that,” Little shared.

“So this year we go that sorted out, he did have some technical issues as well but we worked on it, spent time in Europe the other day competing while we were training and working on our phases, and now we were able to come here and put it together and the result is there for all to see,” Little added.

Overcoming those issues and an environment that lends the necessary support for athletes like himself, who had seen better days, were just the tonic needed.

“In my training we are fun with the athletes. We don’t really like stuck-up environments. We let everyone feel like a family. We give them time to talk as well and they know they have a voice, and like I said, we live as a family; that’s how we work,” said Little.

“It started a long time ago when we had athletes like Josef Robertson who was at a low point in the 400m hurdles and he came to me and I was able to get improvements. Same thing for Annsert Whyte, who I was able to get to the Olympic final and we have athletes even like Kemar Bailey-Cole, who when he just came to Racers, I was the one who was in charge of him and I developed him and brought him to the Carifta Games, he ran second to Jazeel Murphy and I also brought him to sub-10 with the programme that I set out… I have a history of bringing athletes back to their best,” Little smiled.

Bailey-Cole, 2014 Commonwealth Games champion and a World Championships finalist, has been battling several injury setbacks over the last few years, but he somehow managed a fifth-place finish in the final, clocking 10.10 seconds to secure his spot on the 4x100m relay team at Worlds. This was the first season since 2019 that the 30-year-old sprinter was able to run more than one race.

Murphy has also enjoyed a solid comeback over the past two seasons after falling off course following an impressive junior career.

Another Titans athlete who has been speaking loudly on the track is 20-year-old Ackeem Blake, who continued his excellent season by further improving his personal best in the final.

“First of all, we have to give Yohan Blake the credit. Yohan Blake was the one who brought Ackeem to us. I remember the first time Yohan came to me and said he had an athlete who ran 10.4 and he showed me a video on his phone and I told him to bring him to us so we can do an assessment of him. Along with Michael Frater, we did some technical drills and sprinting and we could see that he had good leg speed, so we started to work with him and I designed a three-year plan for Ackeem. This is the second year and he ran 9.93 already, which is good. So we’re looking forward to him rising even higher next year based on our plan,” shared Little.

Little, who first met Blake while still an active athlete at Racers Track Club, picked up coaching after his retirement and worked as Glen Mills’ assistant, working with Blake as well as other standouts at the club, such as Usain Bolt.