BY PAUL A REID Observer writer reidp@jamaicaobserver.com
Former sprinter Ato Boldon says world champions Sha’ Carri Richardson and Shericka Jackson should win the women’s 100m and 200m, respectively, when the track and field schedule starts at the Olympic Games in Paris, France.
The four-time Olympic Games medallist argued, however, that Richardson, of the USA, has to be consistent with her start if she is to win the short sprint, and Jackson needs to have recovered from an injury in her last race before the Olympics.
Boldon scoffed at a video of Jackson practising starts purportedly hours after she pulled up near the end of a 200m race at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial in Hungary — a week after the Jamaican national championships.
Speaking during an episode of the LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast last week Boldon said he did not think Jackson, whose national record 21.41 seconds is the second-fastest ever run in the 200m, might have picked up an injury, after she had started the season looking “sluggish and heavy”.
However, while saying he thinks Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is one of the greatest sprinters ever, he does not see her on the podium in an individual event at this her fifth and final Olympic Games.
Boldon said while Richardson is the world leader in the women’s 100m going into the Paris Games, St Lucia’s Julien Alfred, who attended high school in Jamaica, “could win the whole thing”.
“Shericka’s record against Sha’Carri [in the 100m] is not good,” Boldon said. “It’s not a lot of people that can say they have a winning record against Shericka Jackson in the 100m in the last two seasons — and Sha’Carri is one.
“Julien Alfred can win the whole thing because if Sha’Carri has one of those starts — you know, like she had in the first two rounds at Olympic trials — and Julien gets a [good] start, is that likely to happen? I don’t know how likely that is, and I think that she’s just showing it’s Sha’Carri’s time,” he said.
“I picked Sha’Carri — and I don’t see a reason to move off of her — but Julien, with a superior 200m, who can start like anybody else, better than anybody else, when she’s on, she’s a real problem. But yes, I picked Sha’Carri.”
Boldon says Richardson, who has had issues with her start, is not invincible. “Nobody that starts so inconsistently can be considered unbeatable, and Sha’Carri has starts. Last year she was rattling off starts that were like an eight and a nine sometimes, and then now you see her and I’m like, ‘Oh, that was like a three; it was a four.’
“Oh, yeah, she’s inconsistent.”
Boldon did not name Jackson as a likely medallist in the 100m, even with the Jamaican placing second in back-to-back World Athletics Championships, and said that she might have been injured. “I think they [her camp] have kept some injuries very quiet,” he shared.
He says the MVP Track and Field Club method is to train hard right before a major championships. “Because we don’t really care about competing, but once you get through that block of training you’re good for the end of the year. It’s why MVP athletes tend to run well late into the season.”
Jackson, he said, was not looking herself.
“She looked heavy, she looks sluggish, but she did recover in time to win the Jamaican Olympic trials. That’s not nothing, even though we know that the big three are not the big three like they were; and her 200 looks good, not great,” Boldon reasoned, pointing out she was not picked for the gold medal by American magazine Sports Illustrated.
“I am of the opinion that there was an injury, no matter what that camp says. I need to see Shericka come to Paris and show me that she’s 10.6 [in the 100m] and 21.4 [in the 200m] because I have my concerns,” he said. “We’ll see. Yeah, if she’s healthy then I still pick her. I still pick her to beat [American Gabby Thomas] in the 200m because I feel like she’s more experienced and she has a faster personal best.”
Boldon says he does not see Fraser-Pryce adding to her two gold, silver and bronze in the Olympic Games 100m.
“Not this year,” he said. “Is she beating Julien Alfred? I don’t think so. Is she beating Sha’Carri? I don’t think so. So basically, okay, so that bronze is there. So that bronze is for Josee Marie Ta Lou, Dina Asher-Smith, and basically everybody else — including Shelly-Ann.
“Look, Shelly Ann is a GOAT [greatest of all time], and I think she’s probably my favourite track and field athlete of all time. Here’s why. Because if you were going to build a sprinter I don’t know if you’d start off with somebody five feet tall, and look at what she’s done! World champion [in] the 200m, ridiculous amounts of golds in the 100m. I just feel like she has done the most with her talent of anybody I’ve ever seen, certainly in my lifetime.
“Shelly Ann is doing it the right way, and she all but said it. She’s like, ‘Look, I got like three or four bullets left in this gun; I’m shooting one at the Olympic trials. She did that. She made the team. Probably going to have to shoot one in the semi-final and then she’ll shoot one in the final, and I don’t expect to see her after Paris.”
But he said the “Pocket Rocket” might spring one last surprise.
“If she gets that start right and she figures it out, good luck trying to run her down. Many have tried and failed, but as of right now I don’t I think her lead-up to Paris is going to put her on the podium — but I’d be happy to be wrong on that.”
