PAUL Francis, a member of the Jamaican coaching staff to the World Athletics Indoor Championships to be held in Poland, March 20-22, has urged fans to temper their expectations around the 32-member team named by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) on Monday.

The team includes two bronze medallists from the 2024 staging in Scotland – 60m sprinter Ackeem Blake and long jumper Carey McLeod — as well as Jordan Scott, the men’s triple jump finalist in Nanjing, China last year.

Francis, the head coach at MVP Track and Field Club and a mainstay on Jamaica’s coaching staff to major global championships spanning the last decade, told the Jamaica Observer he is hoping for the best but said that with the absence of a dedicated trial to select the team, and the athletes competing under various conditions including at outdoor meets, it is best to wait and see.

He said there were “two keys things to consider when the selectors are putting this team together — first thing is, we can only select those who make themselves available, and also the lack of a trials specific to the World Indoors”.

“We have to depend on a collation of performances from varying conditions and varying situations, and we have to work within these parameters, doing our best,” he added.

Francis said previous performances at the World Indoors, or even form going into the three-day championships, cannot be relied on.

Meanwhile, with Blake’s wild card entry to the championships Jamaica will have three entries, with World Championships medallists Kishane Thompson and Bryan Levell also named.

Jonielle Smith and former South-Eastern Conference and NCAA Indoor champion Briana Lyston are the Jamaicans down for the women’s 60m.

The selection committee also named five athletes who are currently competing as part of their respective US college teams, including newly crowned Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) women’s triple jump champion Shantae Foreman and 60m hurdles champion Oneka Wilson, both of Clemson University.

Demario Prince of Baylor University and Jerome Campbell of the University of Arkansas are down for the men’s 60m hurdles while his teammates Rivaldo Marshall and Tyrice Taylor are also named in the team, as well as Kimar Farquharson of Texas A&M University.

Kishane Thompson (Photo: Garfield Robinson)

Nikisha Pryce.