Jamaican Track and Field Athletes

The Jamaican Olympics Trials have come and gone, here is what London 2012 Olympics have to say about Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake.

London 2012 Olympics: Usain Bolt now knows that Yohan Blake is the 'Beast' who means business over 100m.

He was doing his best to still sound like the humble apprentice to Usain Bolt’s sorcerer but after defeating the sprinting wizard twice in just three days at the Jamaican Olympic trials in Kingston, it does not wash any more. The 'Beast’ that is Yohan Blake is now in pole position for gold at London 2012.

After handing Bolt his first defeat at 200 metres for five years, just 48 hours after hammering him over 100m, Blake seemed to know his place, insisting modestly that his training partner had not been 100 per cent right and thanking Bolt for his encouragement during practice.

Yet while he was playing the role of surprised understudy away from the track, on it he was demonstrating to the sports world one simple fact: that if Bolt is anything less than fit, flying and off to electric starts, then his bid to become the first man to successfully defend both 100m and 200m titles at an Olympics will be buried by the driven figure he sees improving every day at training on the University of West Indies track in Kingston.

Last weekend Bolt did not look quite right, and questions about his race fitness were also bound to be raised as he needed medical treatment on the track after the finish on Sunday.

It was a sight guaranteed to encourage not only Blake.

The weekend’s sensations in Kingston will have the vultures circling, ready to feed off the growing suspicion that Bolt, after his injury-riddled 2010 and false start in the 2011 world 100m final, is still not quite in his extra-terrestrial 2009 shape when he set his world records of 9.58sec for 100m and 19.19sec for 200m in Berlin.