12 medals

Coming into the 2023 World Championships, predictions ranged from as low as six medals to as high as 17. But after a slow start with no medals from the first two days and three after three days — no gold medal yet — the fans were starting to ask questions. In the end, the 12-medal haul was joint second-best ever for Jamaica. The Jamaicans won the second most in Budapest and came within inches, literally, of winning a fourth gold in the women’s 4x400m relays on the final day that would have taken us to second place on the medals table.

Day 6

The actual names of days are rarely if ever used at the World Championships and as such it was not Thursday, August 24, it was Day 6, or rather the evening session when Jamaica won five medals, including two gold medals, both from unexpected sources — Danielle Williams in the 100m hurdles and 21-year-old Antonio Watson in the men’s 400m.

With gloom setting in, with just three medals up to that point, suddenly the Jamaican flags that were ubiquitous in the National Athletics Centre from the first day were being waved. Jamaicans and neutrals were in full voices.

Even as three Jamaicans were locked in battle for medals in the men’s long jump on one side of the stadium and would eventually take two of the three, in less than 30 minutes Williams and Watson both landed gold before Rushell Clayton snatched a bronze in the 400m hurdles.

Wayne Pinnock had the long jump gold ripped from his grasp when Miltiadis Tentoglou won by two centimetres, while Tajay Gayle took third.

Medal ceremonies

With the medal ceremonies held outside the stadium, giving fans full access, Jamaicans, decked out in their black, green, and gold, celebrated, loudly singing the national anthem on the three occasions that Jamaican athletes won a final.

Fraser-Pryce’s heroics in the women’s 4x100m final

With 200m champion Shericka Jackson expected to join the team, optimism was high among Jamaicans that the team was good enough to win the gold medal, exacting some revenge for losing the women’s 100m gold medal to the Americans.

There was gloom after the race, however, as the injury to Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on the second leg was not obvious to most in the stadium and it was not until later in the evening, when the team did not show up in the media mixed zone, that news of the injury started to spread.

By Sunday morning, the full extent of the injury was known and the incredibly selfless actions on her part were fully discovered.

The coming of age of Antonio Watson

The former Petersfield runner who had experimented with a number of other events — all with some success — was one of the finds of the championships, not just for Jamaica but for global athletics.

He ran thee individual races and won all three, regardless of who was in the race with him, showing neither fear nor favour.

In the semi-finals he sent a big warning, running a lifetime best 44.13 seconds, the eighth time this year he was lowering his lifetime best. He beat World record holder Wayde Van Niekerk and American relay specialist Vernon Norwood who ran his lifetime best but placed second.

After 340 metres in the final, it seemed Watson had left everything on the track the previous day but produced one of the most outstanding comebacks to run past three others and into the history books.

Adelle has the time of her life

Five races, one national record in the 1500m, two big personal bests in the 800m, her first global final, and no one could blame Adelle Tracey if she did not want Budapest 2023 to end.

In a cruel twist of fate, a new rule change denied her a place in the 1500m final. Her time in the semi-finals, 3:59.77 minutes, was faster than every runner in the other semi-final.

Under the previous rule, she would have advanced to the final but the new rules saw athletes advance on placing, the top six from each heat.

A new national record, however, made up for her disappointments as she broke Yvonne Graham’s 4:01.84 set in 1995 when Tracey was two years old.

Roshawn Clarke

Clarke completed the erasure of the Grahams’ names from the Jamaican record books when he broke Winthrop Graham’s — Yvonne’s husband — 47.60 in the men’s 400m hurdles when he ran 47.34, which is also the World Under-20 record.

Clarke had tied Sean Burrell’s 47.85 seconds World Under-20 record when he won the national championships in June and it was just a matter of time before he owned it outright.

Three national records

National records don’t come every day and we saw three over the nine days, Shericka Jackson drew even closer to one of the “unbreakable” women’s World records when she retained her 200m title with 21.41.

That is a mere 0.07 seconds or seven hundredths of a second outside the 21.34 seconds set in 1988, six years before Jackson was born.

Clarke became the 16th fastest men’s 400m hurdler of all time and at age 19 he is still very young and will be one to watch.

Men’s sprint relay medal

Men’s 100m finalist Oblique Seville is not just fast, he is a serious student of the sport and each interview at the World Championships, whether after his personal races or the relays, he dropped nuggets of information.

One of the data he kept repeating was that no Jamaican men’s sprint relay team had won a medal since 2015 in Beijing, China.

As the leader of the young men’s 4x100m relay team in Budapest we can imagine him reminding his team of their responsibilities, and despite the less-than-smooth baton exchanges they delivered with a bronze.

Redemption

Janieve Russell and Candice McLeod had failed to medal in their respective individual events.

Russell was almost inconsolable after the women’s 400m hurdles final, breaking down in tears as she tried to come to grips with finishing seventh in the final, which saw three Jamaicans for the first time ever.

Russell was certain she would finish on the podium but was way off and struggled to come to terms.

Fast-forward to Sunday’s 4x400m relays in which she ran the second leg on the team that won the silver medal and she was giddy with joy.

“I’m really, really grateful, it showed that I am an athlete, I am a champion. I picked up myself, came out here to represent myself, my country, and those who are supporters who have been with me through thick and thin.”

McLeod was also seventh in the women’s 400m final, a result she said in hindsight was not what she wanted, but was also happy for the relay medal.