SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — There was a gasp during the County of Cornwall Athletics Association (COCAA)/GraceKennedy Western Athletics Championships at STETHS Sports Complex, when two-time defending champion DeAndre Daley finished fourth in the Class 1 Boys’ 100m final on Saturday.

It was the first time that Herbert Morrison Technical’s Daley, who had won with 10.59 seconds in 2022 and 10.50 last year, had failed to medal in a final at Western Champs. But his Coach Claude Grant said there is no cause for alarm for the second fastest Jamaican junior male sprinter of all times.

Grant said they were still in the preparation phase for what could be a long season.

“No concerns,” he told the Jamaica Observer. He pointed out that Daley, who has a personal best 10.08 seconds set last June, opened his 100m campaign by retaining his men’s 100m title at the Milo Western Relays held the previous weekend at GC Foster with 10.40 (0.0m/s).

“At this point we are still in training, and what happened is that he ran to instructions, which were to just ‘go out and run, see how you feel, don’t force anything, you have won here before and you have nothing to lose’,” Grant said.

“We are still in the process of getting him to where he needs to be; remember, he just started training in November, so, therefore, we are still in the building process.”

Asked whether their priority is to prepare for the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) athletics championships in March or the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Lima, Peru, in August, Grant said it is the latter.

“Everybody should know it must be Lima. Not that Champs is not important, Champs is a major stepping stone and a major meet for every high school athlete, but for me, it is not as important as getting him ready for Lima.”

At Western Champs, St Elizabeth Technical High School’s (STETHS) Tramaine Todd, last year’s Class 2 winner, strode to a 10.91 timing to win the gold medal. He beat 200m champion Romario Hines (11.04) of Munro College and Cornwall College’s Zachary Cox (11.09).

Daley, who had failed to make it past the first round of the 200m on Thursday’s first day at Cornwall College, had won his first round heat in 10.82 (1.8m/s) at Cornwall and led the semi-finals with 11.00.

The experienced Grant, who also guided two-time World Under-20 champion Dexter Lee — one of a few boys to have won the 100m in all three classes at the ISSA Champs and who still holds a handful of records at Western Champs — insisted Daley is on the right course.

“He will be alright for Champs,” he said.

“It’s my job to prepare the athletes for the major events. And we also must be aware that when you start preparing is very important, and for Daley, he only started training in November as he had a long [2023] season. So we are building and we expect him to do well,” Grant explained.

At the meet, Grant also saw another of his athletes, Trevaine Stewart, win a tough Class 2 final only minutes before the boys Class 1