Jamaica’s indoors women’s 60m hurdles record holder Ackera Nugent will not be overworked in the chase for points in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) outdoor season, says her University of Arkansas Coach Chris Johnson.

A lot is expected of Nugent, who ran 7.72 seconds in the semi-finals of the event at the recent NCAA Indoor National Championships in New Mexico. She broke the previous Jamaican record of 7.74 set in 1998 by Michelle Freeman in France and was this week added to the prestigious Bowerman Watchlist for the first time.

Johnson, who was voted National Women’s Assistant Coach of the Year for the 2023 NCAA DI Indoor Track and Field season by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), said they are taking everything into consideration as they prepare her for the long season.

“In our training, all that is taken into consideration. I mean, you can look back at our indoor [season] and see that she didn’t race very much. It’s almost like we’re working backwards versus forward,” he said when asked if there was consideration for her possibly competing for Jamaica at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August.

Johnson was responding to questions posed by a panel of Jamaican track and field journalists at a specially arranged press conference featuring a number of Jamaican athletes and their coaches at the University of Arkansas.

In addition to a number of meets — almost weekly — US college athletes at the Division 1 level are expected to compete at conference championships, NCAA Regionals, and the National Championships in June.

“All those things have to be taken into consideration,” Johnson said, “Nothing is given. So we understand that she’s got to earn her way on to the [Jamaica] team, and we understand that [qualifying for the] Jamaican team is going to be tough in the hurdles and we have to be careful. So our job is to manage Ackera and make sure that we don’t do too much with her, that she’s not worn out, [and] she’s not tired,” he explained.

Johnson pointed out that they have experience in preparing athletes for competition after the gruelling NCAA season.

“But understand that we’ve been here before. As a coach I’ve been here before with Janique [Brown], who we took all the way to Doha [2019 World Championships]. She got seventh place in Doha, during a long collegiate year.”

Johnson, who has been on the Arkansas staff for 12 years and has also overseen the development of other Jamaicans, including 400m runners Joanne Reid and Nickesha Pryce and hurdler Dazsay Freeman, said, “As a coach, I understand how to prepare her and understand that the health is wealth in these terms, but we’ve also taken those into consideration, those are very important to her and her maturation. But, obviously, we got to take in consideration of the level of athlete she is and prepare for the most important meets they are those that meet in Budapest is very important as well.”