Paul Wright | Team Jamaica shaking off 2017 nightmare

For the Jamaican sport fan, happy days are here again as we can bask in the joy of success in sports now that the IAAF World Championships have got under way in Doha, Qatar.

Our team left our shores with predictions of 12 to 14 medals being bandied about as the post Bolt era begins in earnest. The paltry four medals garnered at the last World Championships has to be surpassed as our nation strives to regain its spot as the best in the world in track and field sports.

Our expectations and joy began with the unexpected triumph of Tajay Gayle in the men’s long Jump. This alumni of Papine High School who finished 26th of 28 entrants in the boys Long Jump at “Champs” in 2014 and who switched to the decathlon in 2015, finishing seventh with 5,987 points, did what few thought possible: a gold medal in the World Championships. His transformation since coming under the tutelage and coaching of the legendary Stephen Francis is simply phenomenal and underlines the so far unparalleled greatness of this Jamaican icon. In fact, when I read that our new World Champion had adjusted his technique just three weeks prior to the start of the Championships, my expectations dimmed appreciably. Then came the news that he ‘just’ qualified for the final, and therefore could compete for a medal, dare I hope?

I should have hoped. His first jump of 8.46m set the so called cat among the pigeons as this unexpected season’s best put severe psychological pressure on the rest of the field, including the event favourite, Juan Miguel Echevarria, who had defeated him in the recently concluded PanAm Games in August. And so it ended, a mighty leap of 8.69m, a national record cementing his place in history. The first Jamaican to win gold in this event at a major international meet. The sky is indeed the limit.

Mommy Rocket at her best

Then on Sunday, our ‘Mommy Rocket,’ Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce did what she had been threatening to do since her return to the sport after childbirth. Her dismantling of a crack field of female sprinters before a half-filled Khalifa International Stadium in Doha proved once again that her indomitable spirit and the coaching nous and genius that is personified in Stephen Francis is as they say: ‘the stuff of legends.’ She had the world at her feet as she paraded her son to a world of potential new sponsors and endorsements.

Jamaica is indeed the sprint capital of the world. Her conqueror in the National Championships earlier this year, Elaine Thompson, finished fourth in this race, and to the medical eyes of doting fans watching, the feeling is that Thompson’s Achilles tendon injury is still a bother. However in a post-race interview, she declared herself healthy.

Her explosive start is missing and after catching the Ivory Coast sprinter Marie Josee Ta Lou at 80m in the race she uncharacteristically was unable to pass her and claim a medal.

We look forward to the 200m race with some degree of apprehension. And what about the other Jamaican in the final, who finished sixth? Jonielle Smith, who qualified for her place on the team by finishing fourth at our trials, ended the day as the sixth fastest woman in the final! She grabbed her opportunity with both hands (or was it both feet?) and did what few in the world thought possible.

Are we Jamaicans great or are we Jamaicans great? To top off the eventful second day of sports, our mixed 4x400m relay team garnered our third medal at these Championships. A silver. During the final lap of the race, as Bahrain’s Abbas Abubakar Abbas closed on our anchor Javon ‘Transporter’ Francis, there was a cry from spectators here in Jamaica who shouted (as if he could hear) “him a come!” , obviously forgetting the relay nous of this athletic great. Francis would NEVER let anyone pass him in that five-meter run to the finish line.

Fedrick Dacres continued Jamaica’s fine form, claiming his first major international medal when he took silver in the men’s discus throw. Good job to the former Calabar High School man.

That silver medal brings our total medal haul after three days of activity to two gold and two silver! So we continue our quest for 12 medals in Doha.

I am sure that we will get them. But what a way to start these championships. All Jamaican sport fans will start the week with a smile on their face and a spring in their step, once again, proving the positive effect that our national representatives in sports have on the nation’s psyche. Our national treasures deserve to be treated as such, when they return to our land. Go team!