TOKYO, Japan — Newly minted 110m hurdles bronze medallist Ronald Levy is possibly one of the few people truly grateful for the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Not that he’s oblivious of the millions who would have lost lives over the past 20 months or so, but solely because of its forced postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games for a year.

Had that not been the case, then certainly a different story would have been written.

“In 2019 my two shins were fractured to the point where serious pain killers could not help,” he revealed, indicating that he ran at the Doha World Championships “on two broken legs”.

“Immediately after Doha I had to do surgery and I couldn’t walk for like four months. Had to sit out the entire 2020. Thank God for corona. [I] came back, trained, and now I’m a medallist; I’m very happy,” noted the man of few words.

Levy had just raced from lane five in the men’s 110m hurdles final to flash across the line in a photo finish with the odds on race favourite, American Grant Holloway.

Holloway gained the nod of the photo finish in 13.09 seconds, with third place and the bronze medal to Levy in 13.10 seconds. The race was won in a huge upset by Levy’s teammate Hansle Parchment in 13.04 seconds.

Levy raced in a prominent position from early and was never in danger of finishing outside the medals places.

“I’m happy for this medal and everything, so I’m really grateful,” he said.

“It wasn’t clean but I still got a medal. The execution was okay, got a twist in the middle and it kind of threw me off a little bit but I continued to push and thank God for my speed, so when I got off the last hurdle I just ran,” explained the super-fast 28-year-old in his first Olympics.

Jamaica’s third representative in the event, Damion Thomas, finished third in semi-final three in 13.39 seconds and failed to advance to the final.

And, even before the Olympics started, Jamaica’s defending champion Omar McLeod was left out of the top three after finishing last at the National Championships in Kingston in late June and appealled for a place on the team.

Rasheed Broadbell, who had produced one of the fastest times, had asked for a medical exemption from the Trials but could not be entertained because of the quality of those who participated at Trials.

Levy preferred not to speak on the controversy concerning McLeod, but said he was glad the country was able to take home two medals from the event.

He did, however, concede that the country’s hurdlers are top notch.

“I’m sure Jamaica has about five persons with the top fastest times in the top 10. That speaks for itself,” he ended.

— Ian Burnett