Briana will be ready!
COACH Ato Boldon has downplayed concerns over the fitness of his star athlete, Briana Williams, who finished ninth in the women’s 100m at Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, during the third leg of the Diamond League series.
In her first race in nearly a month, the 20-year-old Olympic Games relay gold medallist and World Indoor 60m finalist clocked 11.20 seconds (0.7m/s), finishing well behind winner and compatriot Elaine Thompson-Herah, and sparking concerns among sections of track and field fans.
Boldon, who has guided the career of the 2018 World Athletics Under 20 sprint double champion, threw cold water over the doubts, assuring that the sprinter will be ready to show her best when it really counts.
“Briana is coming off her hardest month of work ever and she looked it — she hasn’t run since,” Boldon explained yesterday in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.
“She has done the work and, as usual, she’ll be ready when it matters,” added Boldon, a four-time Olympic medal winner and 1997 world champion in the 200m.
The USA-born Williams is expected to compete at this weekend’s fourth and final Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA)/Sport Development Foundation (SDF) Jubilee Series meet at the National Stadium and then at a meet in New York before the National Senior Championships, which will he held between June 23-26, also at the National Stadium.
Williams, who has two sub-11.00 seconds times under her belt and who holds the 100m and 200m national records in both the Under-18 and Under-20 age groups, was fourth in the women’s 100m at the Jamaican trials last year. She led off the 4x100m relay team that lowered the national record to 41.02 seconds while winning the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Boldon said while they had their eyes on making the team for both the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon in mid-July and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England two weeks later, it was the former that they were paying most attention to.
With defending champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce holding a wild card in the 100m at the World Championships, Jamaica will have four representatives in the event.
Additionally, with two-time Olympic sprint double champion Elaine Thompson-Herah and Olympic Games bronze medallist Shericka Jackson expected to be in the team, there will be a mad rush for the final remaining spot, with as many as five other athletes already indicating that they will be among the challengers.
Fraser-Pryce is the world leader with 10.67 seconds, ahead of Thompson-Herah’s season best 10.79 seconds which was done on Saturday, with Jackson next on the Jamaican list with 10.92 seconds.
Former Edwin Allen standout Kevona Davis, now at the University of Texas, ran a lifetime best 10.95 two weeks ago and is followed by Natalliah Whyte, 10.97; Williams, 11.03; Kemba Nelson, 11.05; and Remona Burchell 11.13 seconds in what is shaping up to be a stacked women’s 100m field at the national trial.