400 Metres

The 2019 World Championships 400 metres finalist, speaking on Sportsmax TV’s On Point, says that after sustaining an injury in April, he is ready to go.

“It was a really bad injury to my right hamstring. I did an intensive rehab process after I got injured. 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 said.

Bloomfield, who holds the Class 1 400m record at the ISSA Boys and Girls' Championships in Jamaica at 44.98, which made him the first Jamaican schoolboy at break 45 second at the championships,  will also be going into this season with a new camp after leaving MVP international and joining the Tumbleweed Track Club based in Florida.

Other members of that club include Olympic 200 metres champion, Andre DeGrasse, and former Calabar rival and Olympic 400 metres finalist, Christopher Taylor.

Bloomfield expanded on training alongside Taylor at the club.

“I can say it’s a very good experience, so far. I mean, we had that high school rivalry so now to put that aside and focus now as professional athletes and train in the same group, I’d say it’s good so far. He’s a very good training partner and I can see us building a very good relationship as the season progresses,” he said.

In a trip down memory lane for many fans of the Jamaican High School Track and Field Championships, or “Champs” as it is affectionately called, Bloomfield was asked about his famous showdown with Taylor on the anchor leg in the Boys open 4x400 metres relay in 2016.

When asked if he would have done anything differently looking back, Bloomfield said he wouldn’t change anything.

“I wouldn’t have used a different strategy because I don’t think people really paid attention to how close our personal bests were. At the time his personal best was 45.2 and mine was 44.9. That’s a very close margin so for me to get the baton 15 metres behind, I can’t be the one to go catch him and then sit behind him. I had to try to zoom ahead and try to hold form and unfortunately it did not work out,” he said.

The full interview can be seen on the Sportsmax TV YouTube channel.

Bloomfield was an easy winner, clocking 46.20 seconds, to get the better of the United States’ Obi Igbokwe, 46.41, and Kuwait’s Yousef Karam, 46.49.

Allen, however, who is returning from an injury that stopped him from finding his way to last year’s IAAF World Championships of Athletics, found the going tough and rounded out the eight-man field in 47.89 seconds.

Czech Republic’s Pavel Maslák, 46.51, and Great Britain’s James Williams, 47.26, were the other athletes to finish ahead of Allen.

Taplin, now 28, was handed a four-year ban last year after being charged with intentionally evading sample collection, following his 400m victory at the 2019 Grenada Invitational Athletics Competition.  The athlete was found to have left the stadium without completing doping control.  Taplin appealed the decision, but it was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) earlier this year.

The athlete will, however, also now serve a sequential three-years on that sentence, this time for doping whereabouts violations that occurred in 2019.  According to a release issued by the AIU, Taplin was found to have missed tests on the 21^st April, August 28th, and 25^th of November. Based on the rules, any combination of three missed
tests and/or filing failures within any twelve-month period is considered a violation.   The Grenada Invitational Athletics concluded on the 13^th of April.  On each of the occasions, the report claims a tester showed up at Taplin’s residence in Bryan, Texas, USA, and knocked for an hour before leaving having not received a response. 

Taplin, through an attorney, later contested the November 25^th missed test after pointing out that he had been required to appear in court at the time of the stated test and did not think there was time to adjust the whereabouts form.  After convening a tribunal, the AIU, however, later rejected the explanation provided by the athlete as insufficient.  The new three-year ban will take effect once the athlete has concluded the four-year period of ineligibility.

Taplin, who has a PB of 44.38, finished 7th in the 400m at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.