Kerron Grant
Titchfield’s Jarrett undecided between 400m and 800m at Champs
Shavan Jarrett wants his final Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Athletics Championships to be his very best. And after years of disappointment, the Titchfield High runner is eyeing a spot on the podium in an individual event.
The thing is, neither Jarrett nor his Coach Kerron Grant are sure as yet which event he will run come March 25-29 as he leads all Class 1 athletes in both the 400m and the 800m.
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“It’s virtually impossible to run the 400m/800m double at Champs. We will have to choose one and go after it,” Grant pointed out.
And while the athlete admitted he prefers the longer race, Grant added “don’t be surprised” if they settle on the 400m. Grant added: “We will make a decision after Eastern Champs [to be staged March 6-7].”
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The 400m starts on Tuesday’s opening day, with the semi-finals set for Wednesday. The 800m is set to start on Thursday, the same day the 400m final is scheduled to be run.
Injury concerns restricted Jarrett running on the Titchfield High’s Sprint Medley Relay team that qualified for the Champs final last season. But so far this season, he has been injury-free and running well, clocking big personal bests in back-to-back weeks of competition.
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At the Youngster/Goldsmith meet at the National Stadium on February 1, Jarrett clocked 47.46 seconds in the 400m, lowering his previous best from 48.46. A week later he broke the men’s 800m meet record at the Western Relays at G C Foster College, running 1:52.20 to better the 1:55.81 he had set in March 2024.
In a bit of serendipity, the previous meet record of 1:53.20 was set in 2019 by Tyrese Reid, then of Spot Valley High. Reid was also coached by Grant.
After his performance at Western Relays, Jarrett told the Jamaica Observer that running injury-free has empowered to push harder.
“I am feeling better this year and I feel more confidence,” he explained, while noting that the last time he contested an individual event was in Class 2.
Jarrett says he is not surprised to have done so well so early in the season.
“I expected to do well as I have been working hard in training. This is my final year and I have my eyes set on making a national team.”
He said, however, he is not ready to set any specific target for the prestigious ISSA Championships.
“I have not really thought too far down the road, and there are some events before Champs,” Jarrett said.
He praised the impact Grant has had on his performances.
“Coach is the difference for me this year,” Jarrett said, while admitting the schedule might not allow him to chase the individual double.
Grant, who was at Vere Technical before heading east to Titchfield High, said he had to be patient when he started last season.
“Things have been progressing well, I have some athletes there and the first job was to instill some discipline and get them to understand the philosophy that I hold and what we hope to achieve and I think its going smoothly,” he told the Observer.
Turning attention to Jarrett and his injury history, Grant added: “[He is] a bright youngster. It’s very easy to work with him, because he follows instructions very well. So I don’t have much challenge working with him.
“One of the things I really wanted to do this year is to ensure that he’s healthy. When I came last year, he had some issues, so that is now resolved.”
With the health issues out of the way, Grant said the plan was to make sure Jarrett could achieve incremental targets, including running sub 1:50.00 over 800m.
“But in order to do that, I want to bring him to run 45.00 or 46.00 seconds in the 400m, so we’re currently working on that in patches. I worked on his endurance; in the last two months, I’ve been running a lot of 1,500m races.”
Grant did not make any prediction about where he thinks Jarrett will finish at Champs, but he said the athlete is where he wants him to be.
“We have a few more races to go. I usually use Western Relays to put all parts of the races together, and so I think we did that. So over the next few weeks we will be putting competitions together, in terms of where to compete, and stuff like that,” the Titchfield coach said.
