JAMAICA’S team to the World Athletics Championships represents a pivotal milestone in the country’s global track and field footprint and it’s poised to be a historic performance in the Hungarian city of Budapest.

That is the sentiment of team leader Maurice Wilson who knows more than just a bit about track and field.

With the eyes of the track and field world focused on the nine-day championships which commenced this morning inside the National Athletics Centre, the makeup of Jamaica’s 65-member team and the performances heading into the championships points to a balance of experienced excellence, and gifted youthfulness.

A rising titan at the peak of her powers, a peerless sprinting queen, determined to add more blocks to her already towering legacy, and a pack of eager and talented youngsters, desperate to turn promise into progress.

With the likes of débutantes: triple jump prodigy Jaydon Hibbert, hot shot 400m hurdler Roshawn Clarke and jumper Carey McLeod along with fellow jumper Wayne Pinnock — now at his second World Championships — sharing air with the peerless Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and medal magnets Shericka Jackson, Hansle Parchment and male team Captain Fedrick Dacres, much is expected of the present and future of Jamaica’s track and field.

“Thanks to all the greats like Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shericka Jackson, all the great athletes in the modern era; I have called a number of names but there are many others — the Michael Fraters going all the way to the Don Quarrie, the Merlene Otteys, the Bertland Camerons and Juliet Cuthberts. They have created a base, a foundation, a platform for our athletes to launch from and I think where we are now, we are going to replicate in totality, most of the performances that we would have seen, separate and apart from maybe one or two special performances,” Wilson told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.

Wilson, never one to make public predictions, bucked that trend by boldly declaring that this Budapest bunch will threaten the 13 medals won at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany.

“In terms of a medal tally, I have always felt that double digits are always good. The record of 13 medals coming out of Berlin, depending on how we start, could be under threat but I am not going to go ahead and make any predictions but as I said, double-digit figures are always good in terms of medals,” said Wilson.

Jamaica won 10 medals at the World Championships in Oregon last year and 12 at the Doha instalment in 2019.

Almost a third of the country’s team consists of World Athletics Championships débutantes with Hibbert, national shot put record-holder Rajindra Campbell and McLeod carrying the medals hopes among the first-timers.

Hibbert enters the championships with the best distance in the triple jump after his 17.87m in Baton Rouge in May. Four of Hibbert’s last five jumps have landed over the 17.50m mark. McLeod’s 18.40m and Pinnock’s 8.37m mean that they are the fourth and sixth-best athletes in the long jump in Budapest.

Meanwhile, another débutante, Clarke (47.85), is one of only seven athletes in Budapest who have gone below 48 seconds in the 400m hurdles, and quarter-miler Antonio Watson, who made a big step up in class with his 45.54 seconds personal best, are also expected to announce themselves on the big stage.

“We are ripe for transition and all the negative talks sometimes — because persons are impatient, they are going to see in the near future, maybe not necessarily this year, but we are going to see how talented these youngsters are — those who are going to lead us into the next dispensation,” said Wilson.

Still, it is the usual suspects who are expected to lead the medal charge for the Jamaicans with Fraser-Pryce — who is hunting a record-extending sixth world 100m title at what is her seventh appearance at the championships — and Jackson, the 100m and 200m favourite at the front of the queue.

Fraser-Pryce, bothered by a knee issue all season, has not been able to put her best foot forward so far but when she has been able to compete this season, she did show signs of what is possible with a 10.82 seconds season best in the 100m. She has improved since and has the championship mettle to upset the odds.

Jackson (10.65 in the 100m and 21.71 in the 200m) is hard to beat in either event and will be hunting her first sprint double as she looks to establish herself as Jamaica’s next sprint queen.

Sprint hurdler Rasheed Broadbell, 12.94, is the fastest man in the 110m hurdles this year and the country is likely to push for medals in all five relays in addition to the women’s 400m hurdles where number-two ranked Andrenette Knight, Janieve Russell and Rushell Clayton are all among the top-six athletes in the event.

“The overall target of this team is to basically make sure that our youngsters get a fulsome experience of the processes involved in international competition at this level. Those who we can help to facilitate their progress whether to a semi-final or a final or in getting medals, then the team is galvanised to do so,” added Wilson, who reported that the team has settled well in Budapest and is looking forward to a successful championship.