Briana Williams moves to Jamaica, now training with Titans
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Olympic relay gold medallist Briana Williams has ended her coaching arrangement with Ato Boldon and will now be coached in Jamaica by Gregory Little and Michael Frater at Titans Track Club.
Williams, 20, has been under the guidance of Boldon since she was 10-years-old and has gone on to establish herself as one of the island’s top female sprinters.
Little expressed enthusiasm to be working with Williams, who now joins a sprint-rich stable that includes the likes of Yohan Blake, Ackeem Blake and Kemar Bailey-Cole.
“We are very excited to work with Briana. She is a very talented athlete and we are looking forward to working with her,” Little told the Jamaica Observer.
Boldon, the multiple world and Olympic medallist said that this was a necessary change for the 2018 World Under-20 Championships double gold medal winner and that it was always expected that she would make a move sooner rather than later.
“This is very necessary. We discussed this last year – the irony with all the ‘change coach’ chorus is that she was never supposed to be under me the whole way – not once was that part of the plan,” said Boldon.
“I am very proud of all that we did. She did things that hadn’t been done before and set or equaled a PR every season,” Boldon added.
Under Boldon’s guidance, Williams won the 100m, 200m and was a member of Jamaica’s gold medal-winning 4x100m relay team at the 2018 Carifta Games which propelled her to the Austin Sealy award.
Williams, who has a personal best of 10.94 seconds in the 100m, was happy with the move.
“I have to thank coach Ato for how much he has done for me and my career so far. He will always be a father figure to me,” said Williams. “I am excited about this new chapter and happy to be training in Jamaica.”