Off to Doha!
Six athletes from western Jamaica, led by former World Champion Yohan Blake, will be part of the Jamaican team that will start their medal hunt at the 17th IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, which begins tomorrow and ends on Sunday, October 6.
Blake and former St Elizabeth Technical and Munro College hurdler Kemar Mowatt are the two men on the team, while former Frome Technical standouts Rushell Clayton and Danniel Thomas-Dodd, Schillonie Calvert-Powell, who started her career at Anchovy High and Stephenie Ann McPherson of Manning’s School, are the females.
Thomas-Dodd, the Commonwealth Games and Pan-American Games shot put champion, who also attended Edwin Allen High, is a medal favourite after just missing a medal in London two years ago, placing fourth.
Thomas-Dodd who has broken the national indoor and outdoor records repeatedly over the past few years, and as recent as at the Pan-American Games in Lima, Peru in July, throwing 19.55m, is ranked number three in the world.
McPherson is expected to make it to the finals of the 400m and should be part of the women’s 4x400m team that will contend for a medal.
She won her first IAAF Diamond League race this year and made it to the final.
Blake will lead the men’s sprint crew that will be without World Record holder Usain Bolt at a major global championships for the first time since 2007.
Blake, who became the youngest men’s 100m champion in Seoul, South Korea in 2011, after Bolt false started, should be good enough to get to the finals, but is expected to go up against a battery of fast Americans led by Christian Coleman and defending champion Justin Gatling.
Mowatt was a finalist in the 400m hurdles at the Rio Olympics in 2016, and while he could get back to the medal round this year, his form leading into the championships is below par.
Clayton won the national championships for the first time this year, upsetting a solid field, then ran her personal best 54.16 seconds at the London Diamond League meeting and will be a dark horse to get to the final.
Calvert earned a spot in the 200m after placing third at the national trials and will also vie for a spot on the 4x100m relay team that could win the gold medal.