When the 100m time of 9.86 seconds was first achieved, it was a world record. Set at the 1991 World Championships, it gave American Carl Lewis the gold medal in the most hotly contested 100 final of all time. Now it’s a calling card for Jamaican Oblique Seville who clocked 9.86 seconds in Kingston on May 21.
Oblique Seville wins 100m in new PR, JAAA/SDF Jubilee Series 2.1
The achievement by the 21-year-old Jamaican vaulted him to sixth on the all-time national performance list, headed by Usain Bolt at 9.58, and places Seville in contention for a place in the final at the Jamaican Championships next month. At the end of March, when Seville’s seasonal best was 10.29, 2005 World Championships 100 metre runner-up Michael Frater pinpointed him for success.
“No one knew Seville before he won the Class 1 100 at Champs and he has just been improving steadily over the last few years”, Frater remarked in March.
Incidentally, the slightly built Racers Track Club speedster displaced Frater, whose lifetime best is 9.88 seconds, from the sixth position on the Jamaican all-time performance list to seventh.
In his last year as a schoolboy, Seville transferred from Holmwood Technical to Calabar High School for whom he won the 2019 Boys and Girls Championships Class 1 100m in 10.13 seconds. He later took the Carifta Games Under 20 gold medal, and the silver medal at the Pan-American Under 20 Championships.
Seville then joined the Racers Track Club and reached the Olympic semi-finals in Tokyo, Japan. “I think he got valuable experience competing at the Olympics”, Frater noted in March, “so he should use that to propel himself to even making the finals if he makes the team at this next World Championships.”
Since March, the Glen Mills coached Seville approached and moved past his personal best of 10.04 with times of 10.06 and 10.00 at meets inside the National Stadium, into number 2 on the 2022 world performance list 0.01 behind Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala.
Behind the new sub-10 man was former STETHS sprinter Conroy Jones, with a personal best of 10.14.
The famous 1991 World Championships 100m race saw six (6) men break 10 seconds including Jamaica’s Raymond Stewart. The 6 were as follows;
Sprinter Carl Lewis celebrates after winning the 100m final
- USA Carl Lewis 9.86
- USA Leroy Burrell 9.88
- USA Dennis Mitchell 9.91
- GBR Linford Christie 9.92
- NAM Frank Fredericks 9.95
- JAM Raymond Stewart 9.96
Christie, Fredericks and Stewart clocked national records.
Extra resource: Google search 100m final 1991 world champs