The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

MEN’S 4 X 100

Often framed as a highly anticipated showdown between Jamaica and the USA, this year’s event won’t have the standard star power we have become accustomed to on either side. What it will offer is a look at a new cast of characters.

This rivalry escalated at the last World Relays when Ryan Bailey anchored the Americans who crossed the finish line ahead of the Jamaicans, despite Usain Bolt running one of the fastest splits in history. Bailey celebrated with the kind of throat-slitting gesture Roger Goodell would lose his mind about if done on an NFL field, but it’s track and field and it’s the Bahamas…so we’re cool.

Jamaica would exact revenge the following year in Rio. This year’s lineup for both teams will be considerably different. Usain Bolt declared he would not compete some time ago, and we learned yesterday that Asafa Powell and Julian Forte withdrew at the 11th hour.

The hopes of the Jamaican team now rest heavily on the shoulders of Yohan Blake, 2011 World Champion and fourth place finisher at the Rio Olympics. Blake still has yet to return to peak form since a devastating hamstring injury and the remainder of the team will be comprised of Kemar Bailey-Cole, Everton Clarke and Jevaughn Minzie.

The US team will return just two members of its 2015 team – Justin Gatlin and Mike Rodgers. Other members of the relay pool include Marvin Bracy, Leshon Collins and Ronnie Baker, who recently ran a sub 10-second race on April 15.

With uncertainty surrounding the traditional favourites, Canada has an opportunity to pull off the upset ahead of the field. Led by Andre De Grasse, who many pundits consider the future of sprinting once Usain Bolt exits the sport, Canada will field all four members of the team that won 4x100m bronze in Rio - the remainder of the team Akeem Haynes, Aaron Brown and Brendon Rodney. DeGrasse is the reigning Olympic 100m bronze and 200m silver medallist and is nearly as big of a star in Canada as Drake, DeMar DeRozan, Justin Beiber or whoever is good at hockey these days.

Olympians Adrian Griffith, Warren Fraser and Shavez Hart lead Team Bahamas’ pool along with collegiate sprinters Cliff Resias and Samson Colebrooke. The men’s 4x100 has the highest number of teams with 21 team entries.

WOMEN’S 4X100

Like the men’s race, the favourites and top finishers from 2015 underwent a complete roster turnover in 2017. Simone Facey returns from the 2015 team but Veronica Campbell-Brown, Kerron Stewart and Schillonie Calvert are all out.

Jamaica’s newest sprint sensation, double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson was expected to lead this year’s team, but opted not to compete in the event but will instead, only be available for the 4x200m. It leaves Facey and Christania Williams, two members of the silver medal winning team in Rio, to carry the mantle for the Jamaicans. Natasha Morrison, Sashalee Forbes and Gayon Evans complete the pool.

The USA currently has the most accomplished roster with long jump Olympic champion Tiana Bartoletta, who is competing at her third World Relays event and English Gardener who made the Olympic final in Rio. Both were also members of the USA’s gold medal winning 4x100 team in Rio, along with Morolake Akinosun, who ran in the prelims.

Trinidad and Tobago will field the same squad from the bronze medal-winning team at the Beijing World Championships in 2015. T and T will include Michelle-Lee Ahye, Kelly-Ann Baptiste, Khalifa St Fort, Reyare Thomas and Semoy Hackett.

The Bahamas has fielded such a youthful pool for the 4x100, that recent USC graduate Tynia Gaither is the senior member of the team at just 24-years-old. Other members of the pool includes Tayla Carter, Tamara Myers, current collegiate athletes Brianne Bethel and Jermeka McBride. High school standout Devine Parker, just off a silver medal performance at CARIFTA in the 200m, will also vie for a spot.

World Champion and Olympic silver medallist Dafne Schippers will compete for the Netherlands.

A total of 14 teams are entered in the event.

Men’s 4x400

At the 2015 World Relays, the average Bahamian fan questioned the coaching staff when they saw a tall, lanky teenager on the third leg of the 4x400m final, running alongside the Golden Knights they had become so familiar with. Two years later, Steven Gardiner is the undisputed leader of this year’s 4x400 squad. Gardiner opened his season by running a world leading 44.26 secs at the Grenada Invitational. With a 4x400m bronze medal at the Rio Olympics under his belt, Gardiner leads the team that also includes Golden Knight Michael Mathieu who has been a member of three medal winning Olympic teams and will compete at his third World Relays. The relay pool also includes veteran quarter miler Andretti Bain, a member of the silver medal winning Beijing Olympic team, Elroy McBride and collegiate teammates Andre Colebrook and Ashley Riley.

This event has been traditionally billed as another chapter in the rivalry between the home team and the United States, dating back to the London 2012 Olympics when Ramon Miller out raced Angelo Taylor down the home stretch. Following his absence from that race in London, LaShawn Merritt gave voice to the rivalry and has since anchored the US to consecutive wins on Bahamian soil in 2014 and 2015, with the Bahamas finishing in second each time.

Merritt, the individual 400m bronze medallist will run alongside three members of the gold medal winning 4x400 team from Rio including Gil Roberts, Tony McQuay and Kyle Clemons who ran in the prelims.

As long as Belgium continues to field a trio of Borlee brothers, they will remain in contention for a spot on the medal podium. Dylan, Jonathan and Kevin Borlee ran alongside Julien Watrin for a bronze medal finish behind the USA and the Bahamas.

Botswana will also be a challenger led by Isaac Makwala who ran a personal best time of 43.72 secs in 2015. He will be joined by Baboloki Thebe (44.89 secs) and Karabo Sibanda (45.07 secs), who have posted the second and third fastest times respectively on the IAAF Top List behind Gardiner. Jamiaca will be without national record holder Rusheen McDonald and Trinidad and Tobago’s well known quartet of Machel Cedenio, Lalonde Gordon, Renny Quow and Deon Lendore will also be a factor.

Women’s 4x400

Another USA vs. (insert Caribbean country here) battle. The Americans have been the dominant team at nearly every major event for the last five years, challenged only by the Jamaicans. At the last two editions of both the World Relays and the Olympics, the USA has finished first, with Jamaica in second. Jamaica’s odds of winning took a major hit when it was announced yesterday that Shericka Jackson, world and Olympic bronze medallist, would only compete in the 4x200. The remainder of the Jamaican team will include Verone Chambers, Christine Day, Anneisha McLaughlin-Whilby, Stephanie Ann McPherson and Janieve Russell.

The USA has a very decorated group that has all been a part of medal winning teams at major events. Natasha Hastings is the leader of the group that includes Phyllis Francis, Claudia Francis, Ashley Spencer Joanna Atkins and Quanera Hayes.

Team Bahamas will, of course, be lead by Shaunae Miller-Uibo and the newest addition to the team in hopes of reaching the final is the conversion of Anthonique Strachan from the 100-200m to the 400m. Strachan has posted a personal best of 52.42 secs in the event set last June.

Women’s 4x200

I’m going to go on record and recklessly speculate that Jamaica is absolutely going for the world record here. Elaine Thompson and Shericka Jackson are individual Olympic medallists not competing in their signature events, but saving it all for the 4x200. Here for the record chase...and the other nine teams in the field.

Men’s 4x200m

Jamaica still holds the world record from the inaugural event in 2014 and will return two members of that record breaking team – Warren Weir and Nickel Ashmeade. Rasheed Dwyer, Nigel Ellis, Oshane Bailey and Chadic Hinds join the squad this time around. Justin Gatlin and Marvin Bracy will double up from the 4x100 and wll be joined by Amer Webb, Isiah Young, Noah Lyles, Jarrison Lawson . The talent level hasn’t been the problem for the USA in the past two editions of the World Relays, but a pair of disqualifications. The Bahamas’ team for this event will include Hart, Colebrooke and Resais from the 4x100, with the edition of Blake Bartlett, Ian Kerr and Golden Knight Demetrius Pinder. A total of 15 men’s teams will take part.

Men’s/Women’s 4x800

Kenya, the USA and Poland are really really good at this. The Bahamas is not.

Mixed Relays

This is where the IAAF has an opportunity to make headway in the market share of fans buying into track and field as a spectator sport. It should be closer to pro wrestling. They took a step in the right direction with the entrances and now the mixed relay takes it a step further.

The addition of the mixed 4x400 mixed relay is aimed at adding excitement according to Carlo de Angeli, head of event operations for the IAAF.

In February, De Angeli said the mixed 4 x 400m relay has only been run once - at the IAAF World Youth Championships in 2015 in Cali - and it was a tremendous success at the time.

“We’ve removed what was the medley relay because the participation, honestly, was not what we had expected, so we hope to bring new life and new teams to this exciting event,” he said. “As we’ve seen in Cali for the youth, it’s something that teams appreciate with men and women running together. It’s unpredictable because we don’t ask for a fixed running order. So it’s always something exciting to look forward too.”

Each team entered will be required to field two men and two female and they can select their runners in whatever order they decide to do so.

“They only have to tell us that one hour4 before the event is ran,” De Angeli said. “So everybody will be looking out to see who will be using which strategy against each other. It’s going to be a testing ground for the Bahamas, but we believe we can take it to other events that we put on elsewhere.”

That statement tells me you have everything you need for a made for TV thriller – you can have strategy, espionage, and the division down gender lines supplementing the already built in division by nationality. Most importantly of all, it gives every sports fan an opportunity to deliver hot takes and argue about nothing and endless “what if” possibilities.

What if Shaunae (she’s a single name level of fame now) and Steven Gardiner ran against Natasha Hastings and LaShawn Merritt?

The next step is to field regional all-star teams or just have them line up schoolyard style and the two fastest people choose their teams at random.  The ideas for 2019 are going to be amazing as soon as the LOC hires me.