Hall heads to South Plains on Scholarship

Edwin Allen High School is about to say goodbye to Chevonne Hall, who took the Class One 800 and 1500 metres at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Athletics Championships (Champs).

Edwin Allen coaching expert Michael Dyke expects him to do well at South Plains Junior College in Texas. Dyke says Hall improved significantly in 2021 and believes Jamaica may soon have an Olympic finalist in the men's 800m.

Hall removed a record set by Kimar Farquharson of Calabar High School in 2019 with an audacious run of 1:48.57 minutes. The 19-year-old Edwin Allen representative zoomed the first lap in 50.4 seconds and held on to win over Calabar's Rivaldo Marshall and Jamaica College's J'Voughnn Blake, who both broke 1.49s as well.

"He is somebody who works very hard and very disciplined towards his training," Dyke said. "So his results this year weren't surprising at all."

Dyke is happy to see times similar to those clocked in 2019 by Farquharson and Enid Bennett High School's Tyrice Taylor.

"I was very pleased to see, you know, we have some youngsters getting back into that realm because, well, it wasn't too long ago that, it was the year before that, we had the youngster from Calabar running," Dyke recalled, "so it's a good sign to see consistency within that time range coming out of Champs."

Hall, Farquharson, Marshall, Blake, and Taylor have made Dyke optimistic about Jamaica's future in the men's 800m.

"It is still a bit, a way off when you look at what is out there at the international level, you know," he said. "But the youngsters that we have now, I believe if they are nurtured properly and motivated, who to tell, we might end up with probably an Olympic finalist in the not too long distance from now."

Hall's fine season continued with a time of 1:48.73 minutes at the National Junior Championships and with a personal best 1.48.50 minutes at the World Under 20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya on August 21.

"He has a lot of confidence but I was a bit disappointed at the World Juniors because to be honest, the strategy at Champs running in that thin air in Kenya should have been a little bit different," Dyke said ruefully.

Hall again burst into the lead in his World Under 20 Championship semifinal, but in Nairobi's 1600 metres of elevation, he struggled at the end and missed the final. "You won't be able to push it like that in Kenya and survive, especially that last lap, and I think that's what hurt him, but he's still young and he's learning," Dyke said.

South Plains helped Natoya Goule on her way to the world class level in the two-lap event. During her sojourn there, Goule won the 600 and 800 metres, in record time, at the 2011 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships.