Akeem Bloomfield is on the comeback trail. With the debilitating effect of a hamstring injury behind him, the tall, long-striding 400m man is stepping into the 2022 season with confidence.

In 2019, Bloomfield was riding high. He was the runner-up at the NCAA Championships, gaining a personal best of 43.94 seconds, just 0.01 off the Jamaican record. That season ended with him in the World Championships 400m final, and with him taking silver as a part of the Jamaican 4x400m team.

Injury ravaged his right hamstring in April and put him out of contention for a place on the Jamaican team to the Tokyo Olympics but now he is back.

“Even though I shut down my season, I was still doing rehab. So, I can say, for the most part, right now I’m 100 percent healthy,” he told SportsMax TV recently.

Bloomfield, who set the Class 1 400m record at the ISSA Boys and Girls Championships in Jamaica at 44.93 (which made him the first Jamaican schoolboy at break 45 seconds) is now based in Florida. His training partners there include fellow Jamaicans Omar McLeod, Britany Anderson and Christopher Taylor.

With a 200m personal best of 19.81 seconds in his arsenal, Bloomfield isn’t sure whether his focus will be on the 400m or the shorter event.

“At this point, it’s whatever coach has in store for me”, Bloomfield declared. “He thinks that this season, we should focus more on the 400m for the most part. As for now, that’s what I think I will be focusing on, the 400m”, the former Kingston College track and field captain confirmed.

With Nathon Allen and Demish Gaye both in the 2017 World Championships final and, Gaye and Bloomfield in the 2019 final and, the aforementioned 4×400 relay silver, none other than Sprintec head coach and founder Maurice Wilson said in 2020 that a team with Bloomfield, Gaye and Allen could break the 4x400m world record. Asked if Jamaica could surpass the time of 2 minutes 54.29 seconds set by the USA in 1993, he said, “The 4×4 is there for the taking. We have at least 3 solid quarter milers as we speak, with more in the wings coming.”

Since then, Gaye and Allen have both endured injuries. On the plus side, Taylor lowered his personal best to 44.79 seconds in the 2021 Olympic final. Gaye, Taylor, 400m hurdler Jaheel Hyde and Allen then clocked 2 minutes 58.76 seconds for fifth place in the relay.

Bloomfield is hopeful about a return to the fast lane. “We crunched some numbers, me and the coach, and it’s some pretty good numbers”, he hinted. “The work is hard but the work has to be done regardless of if I was training for the 200m or the 400m, so I’m just focused on really improving”, the 24-year-old Jamaican resolved.

A couple of ticks of improvement would take him past the Jamaican record of 43.93 seconds.