Edwin Allen High School coaching maestro Michael Dyke, believes that it won’t be long before Jamaica once again has a finalist in the men’s 800 metres at the Olympic Games. Dyke cites the Boys and Girls Championships class 1 800 results in both 2019 and 2021 as a clear sign that the end of a decades-long drought is nigh.

The late George Kerr placed fourth in a bumpy 1964 Olympic final and though there has been world-class running in the event by the likes of Seymour Newman and Clive Terrelonge, the drought has lasted for almost 60 years.

In the 2019 and 2019 finals put together, 5 boys ran under 1 minute 49 seconds, leaving Dyke to predict that change is coming. “I would say yes but it is still a bit, a way off when you look at what is out there at the international level, you know”, said the man who coached Kayann Thompson to a World Under 20 800 metre medal in 2004, “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 distant future.”

In 2019, Kimar Farquharson of Calabar High School clocked 1 minute 48.67 seconds to break a 1987 mark of 1.48.84 by Sherwin Burgess. Farquharson had hustle as Tyrice Taylor Enid Bennett, 1.48.91, and Tarees Rhoden, 1.49.04, were in hot pursuit. This year, Chevonne Hall of Edwin Allen went even faster at 1 minute 48.58 seconds, pulling Rivaldo Marshall and J’Voughnn Blake to twin times of 1.48.86.

Hall lowered his personal best to 1 minute 48.50 seconds later in the season.

The coach was delighted that the 2021 final matched 2019 for pace and depth. “To be honest, 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 so it’s a good sign to see consistency within that time range coming out of Champs”, said Dyke.

Newman was world-class in the mid-nineteen seventies and lost a place in the Olympic final in 1976 when he was bundled and bumped in the semi-final. On June 21, 1977, he set a national record of 1 minute 45.21 seconds in Helsinki. It still stands today.

Terrelonge took the 1995 World Indoor Championships final by the scruff of the neck and held on. He is still the only Jamaican gold medallist in the 800 in that meet’s history.

Arthur Wint, with silvers in 1948 and 1952, and Kerr, 3rd in 1960, won Olympic medals and Dyke hopes Hall, Farquharson, Taylor, Marshall, Blake and Rhoden can make the step up to being Olympic and World Championships finalists. “It is good to see them running that sort of pace and consistent throughout the Championship”, Dyke praised.