Sanjay Ayre, coach of Chase Athletics, says he has been working assiduously with Jamaican quarter-miler Akeem Bloomfield to help his charge to return to his best ahead of the 2023 track and field season and beyond.

The 25-year-old Bloomfield, a Kingston College star, joined the Baltimore-based Chase Athletics at the end of the last track and field season in August, having moved on from the Florida-based Tumbleweed Track Club.

Bloomfield failed to pass the first round of this year’s 400m at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, after finishing 26th overall in a season’s best time of 20.56.

Ayre told the Jamaica Observer from his base in Baltimore that Bloomfield has been working very well so far in training and believes that once he remains injury-free, then he could be a force next season.

“I am just going through the process of trying to get him back to his best,” said Ayre, who represented Jamaica at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, in 400m and 4x400m relays.

“He has been looking good in practice so far and we are looking forward to a solid healthy 2023 season,” he said.

“He is a super talent and so we are just trying to get him back to his best form because he has been out of form for quite some years. The system that I run is similar to the system that he had a lot of success with when he was at Auburn University, and just trying to get him back at a high level as a world-class 400m runner,” Ayre said.

Ayre shared that Bloomfield has an excellent work ethic in training and he is very happy to be coaching him.

“It feels good to have him in because he is a quarter-miler that I have admired over the years and I have wanted to coach him for a while, and so it is good to have him in my camp and to give him my expertise and we are looking forward to positive things for 2023 and beyond,” he said.

“The goal is get back to peak conditions, but I am not going to say that is going to happen next season, but that is the overall goal to make him a world beater again,” Ayre added.

Bloomfield is seen as one of Jamaica’s most promising athletes with personal bests of 19.81 for the 200m and 43.94 for the 400m, which he achieved in 2018.

He was eighth at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, in the 400m and won silver as part of the 4x400m relay team.

However, since then his progress has been hampered by a series of injuries, plus in 2021 he lost his mother to cancer and basically shut down his season before the Olympic Trials in Jamaica.

Chase Athletics is also the club of national quarter-miler Javon Francis who won silver medals in the 4x400m and 4x400m mixed relay at the 2019 World Championships for Jamaica.