KINGSTON, Jamaica — A sore hamstring between the semi-final and final of the men’s 100m at the Olympic Games at Stade de France last weekend might have affected Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson more than the unusually lengthy wait for the start, according to Coach Stephen Francis.

The start of the final, held in front of a capacity crowd of over 75,000, was delayed for an unusually long time before American Noah Lyles edged out Thompson by the closest margin ever—5/1000ths of a second—after both men crossed the finish line in 9.79 seconds.

The delay, it was later learned, was caused by a security breach after a spectator managed to get onto the infield. However, in an interview with Observer Online on Saturday, Francis said the shorter time they had to work with Thompson during the hour and 45 minutes break might have been the bigger issue.

“I think his problem occurred when he came back after the semi-finals with a hamstring issue, and from our perspective, we had to spend the entire time trying to get him ready to run, or at least to participate, because based on what he said he was feeling, it was uncertain,” Francis said.

The physiotherapist, Francis told Observer Online, “had to use all kinds of techniques to not only get him okay, but to make him believe he was okay. In the warm-up, before they went to the call room, I had intended to emphasise the start because I knew that was crucial, but we couldn’t do it because we didn’t want to encourage him to push out from the blocks and get himself hurt.”

Francis, who had argued before the start of the Olympics that experience would not be a factor for Thompson in his first major championships, admitted that the athlete might have been affected more by the unplanned delay than the other men.

“I think they [the officials] did what they had to do,” Francis said, “But as I told Kishane, I said, ‘Kishane, they did what they needed to do; you should have done what you needed to do, which was just to leave the start line. You should have left the line, gone out there, and told them that when they’re ready, they can call you back. But you should not have allowed them to have you standing there for seven minutes.’”

However, Francis said, “I wouldn’t really call it a big a factor. I mean it probably affecting him a little bit more, because he was not used to it, because these kinds of pauses occur on the circuit, sometimes not as long, and they tend to occur at the big championship sometimes, but I have never seen so long but I don’t think he knew how to handle that kind of stuff as well.”

— Paul A Reid