Davonte Burnett joins elite club of Jamaicans to run sub10
DAVONTE Burnett became the 20th Jamaican man to run sub-10.00 seconds in the 10om after he won the event at last weekend’s 62nd Mt San Antonio College (SAC) Relays in California.
Burnett, who is a senior at the University of Southern California (USC) and who switched allegiance from the USA last year, competing at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) National Senior Championships, won the event in 9.99 seconds (0.3m/s).
After running 10.23 seconds (1.2m/s) in the heats on Friday’s second day of the three-day meet, Burnett easily beat Marcellus Moore of the University of Texas in – 10.26 seconds and Shaun Maswanganyi of the University of Oregon.
A second Jamaican, Xavier Nairne of the University of Oregon, was disqualified in the final after he had run a wind-aided 10.15 seconds (2.9m/s) in the preliminaries.
World record holder Usain Bolt, with his 9.58 seconds set at the World Championships in 2008, leads the Jamaican list followed by Yohan Blake (9.69 seconds), and former World record holder Asafa Powell third with 9.72 seconds.
World Championships bronze medallist Nesta Carter is fourth in the tables with a best of 9.78 seconds, followed by Steve Mullings (9.80 seconds), Michael Frater (9.88 seconds), Nickel Ashmeade (9.80 seconds), Julian Forte (9.91 seconds), Kemar Bailey-Cole (9.92 seconds), Kemarley Brown (9.93 seconds), Andrew Fisher (9.94 seconds), and Mario Forsythe (9.95 seconds). Raymond Stewart, Senoj-jay Givans, and national champion Tyquendo Tracey all ran 9.96 seconds; Percival Spencer, Odean Skeen and Andre Ewars share 9.98 seconds, while Burnett joins former Commonwealth Games champion Lerone Clarke and Omar McLeod on 9.99 seconds.
Kemarley Brown and Andrew Fisher have since running sub-10.00 seconds after switching allegiance to Bahrain.
— Paul Reid