Despite a cramping hamstring Akeem Bloomfield uncorked his fastest ever season opener while winning the 400m at the Back To The Track: Clermont meeting in Florida on Friday.

The 22-year-old quarter-miler ran a world-leading 45.07 to win ahead of Josephus Lyles, brother to 200m World Champion Noah Lyles, who was timed in 45.40. For Bloomfield, it was a solid follow up performance coming up after his 20.8 200m just over a week ago.

“ I feel satisfied with my 45.07 season opener. It is the fastest I have ever opened my season in the 400m,” said the former Auburn man, who suggested that he could have gone even faster.

“I could not execute the race in the manner I wanted to due to my hamstring cramping during the race but I just kept a steady pace and tried to finish strong so to see a time of 45.07 is a good enough result for me.”

Bloomfield, who has a personal best of 43.94, 0.01 outside Jamaica’s national record indicated that the run was a sign that training has been going according to plan, despite the pandemic lockdown

“Training has been going fairly well. We have been back on the track for about a month and we are just trying to make up for the time we lost during lockdown due to the coronavirus,” he said.

Bloomfield was not the only Jamaican winner at the meet last Friday night as World U20 silver medallist Britany Anderson racing against sisters Tiffany Porter and Cindy Ofili, ran 12.82 to take the 100m hurdles.

Porter was second in 12.92 while Ofili clocked 12.95 for third.