April 2022 a big month for Jamaica in 800m

April 2022 may go down as the month where Jamaica began its journey back to prominence in the 800 metres. April saw three Jamaicans break one minute 47 seconds, with Rajay Hamilton climbing to number eight on the national all-time performance list. Hamilton's coach Mark Elliott says there could be others who will make the grade.

Hamilton moved his personal best from one minute 47.51 seconds to 1.46.30 on April 16 with Navasky Anderson and Kimar Farquharson getting to lifetime marks of 1.46.51 and 1.46.88, respectively. "There are a lot more people, like I've been saying for years, that have that potential to do it," Elliott said.

Arthur Wint and George Kerr won Olympic medals in the 800m in 1948, 1952 and 1960 and Elliot thinks a renaissance is possible. "Just like in the throws, we used to have one or two throwers, but now there are big time throwers and the same thing can happen in almost any event if someone embraces it and gets on a pretty good plan," said Elliott who is director of track and field at Clemson University in the United States.

Though he won the Class One 800 and 1500 metres at the ISSA-GraceKennedy Boys and Girls' Championships for Calabar High School in 2014, Hamilton came to Elliott as a 46.07 seconds 400 metres runner. He clocked 1.47.14 in 2021 and 1.46.97 and now 1.46.30 in 2022. "You know, it's very difficult for a Jamaican to embrace a two-lap race, so he's embracing it and getting better and I guess the sky's the limit as long as he sticks with it," the coach said yesterday.

"I told him with his speed and him embracing the 800m for real, he can run 1.44," Elliott said.

The coach thinks the 800m is a good fit for Jamaica.

"It's a mixture of speed and endurance and you know speed is not something we're lacking back in Jamaica and endurance is just a lifestyle for us."

The qualifying standard for the 2022 World Championships is 0.01 hundredth of a second under Seymour Newman's 1977 Jamaican record of 1.45.21.

"The 800m record should have been gone already, not disrespecting the mark because that's a really fast mark but I think it should be, and people like Rajay, Tarees and, you know Farquharson, and even the young man from Jamaica College (J'Voughnn Blake) I see running, there are four guys there and I'm sure there are more that will do it at some point if they stick with it," he envisaged.

The 26-year-old Hamilton clocked one minute 16.00 seconds to be the runner-up over 600 metres at the recent Penn Relays and the coach sees further progress when he races over 800m on May 19 in California.

"Our goal is hopefully to try to better the time there if the conditions and the field lends itself for that to happen," he projected.