Jamaica closed the 2022 World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade with a gold medal after winning the women's 4x400m relay on Sunday.

World-leader in the 60m hurdles Danielle Williams, Britany Anderson and Natoya Goule are among the medal contenders named to Jamaica’s team to the World Indoor Championships in Serbia from March 18-20.

Williams set a world-leading time of 7.75 at Clemson on February 11, which makes her a medal favourite for the championships. Anderson, 21, ran a lifetime best of 7.82 in Louisville, Kentucky, making her fourth-best in the world this year. Besides her compatriot, only Americans Kendra Harrison and Alia Armstrong, who have both run 7.81 have gone faster.

Goule, who ran world-leading times twice so far this season, has the second-fastest time in the world over 800m this indoor season. Her 1:58:46 set in France on February 17, is only bettered by Keely Hodgkinson's 1:57.20 set in Birmingham on February 19.

The 19-member team also includes Briana Williams, whose 7.09 makes her the second-fastest Jamaican and sixth-fastest in the world over 60m this year and Shericka Jackson, whose personal best of 7.12 makes her the third-fastest Jamaican and tied for 14th in the world for 2022.

The female dominant team also includes Danielle Thomas-Dodd for the shot put, Kimberly Williams in the triple jump as well as Roneisha McGregor and Stephenie-Ann McPherson for the 400m.

 Junelle Bromfield, who is an alternate for the 400m, Tiffany James, Tovea Jenkins, Janieve Russell as well as McPherson and McGregor comprise the 4x400m relay squad.

Christopher Taylor has been named for the 400m while Ronald Levy will go in the 60m hurdles and Nigel Ellis will compete in the 60m dash.

 Women’s Discus

Cuba’s Yaime Perez secured a bronze medal with a throw of 65.72.

Shadae Lawrence of Jamaica finished 7^th with a distance of 62.12, which she did in the second round.

The gold medal went to Valarie Allman of the USA with 68.98 and Germany’s Kristin Pudenz was second with a personal best of 66.86.

Men’s 400 Metres

Three Caribbean men will be in the final of the men’s 400 metres.

Semi-final 1 saw Grenada’s 2012 Olympic champion Kirani James run his fastest time since the 2016 Olympic final.

 James won the race in 43.88 to advance to his third straight Olympic 400 metres final and will be seeking a third straight medal.

Trinidadian Deon Lendore was also in semi-final 1 and finished fourth in 44.93.

Jamaica’s Christopher Taylor finished second in semi-final 2 to advance to his first Olympic final with a season’s best 44.92.

Trinidad & Tobago’s Machel Cedenio and Alonzo Russell of the Bahamas finished seventh and eighth respectively with times of 45.86 and 46.04.

Bahamian 2019 World Champion Steven Gardiner ran 44.14 to win the third semi-final and advance.

Jamaica’s Demish Gaye finished fourth in 45.09, Trinidad & Tobago’s Dwight St. Hillaire finished seventh in 45.58 and Jonathan Jones of Barbados finished eighth in 45.61.

Women’s 400 Metre Hurdles

Jamaica’s Janieve Russell finished second in semi-final 1 in 54.10 to advance to the final.

Panama’s Gianna Woodruff ran a national record of 54.22 to finish second in semi-final 2 and advance.

Semi-final 2 also saw Cuba’s Zurian Echevarria finish fourth in 55.21 and Barbados’ Tia-Adana Belle finished eighth in 59.26.

Men’s Triple Jump

Cristian Napoles of Cuba was the only Caribbean man to advance to the final.

Napoles jumped 17.08 to finish fourth in qualifying.

Jamaica’s Carey McLeod, who also competed in the long jump at these Olympics, finished 24^th in qualifying with a jump of 16.01.

Women’s 400 Metres

The Caribbean will be well represented in the semi-finals.

Shaunae Miller-Uibo turned up for heat 1 and ran 50.50 to easily win and advance to the semi-finals.

In fact, the top 4 women in heat 1 all hail from the Caribbean and all advanced to the semi-finals.

Roxana Gomez of Cuba finished second in 50.76 to get through automatically.

Sada Williams of Barbados also got through automatically after finishing third in 51.36.

Guyana’s Aliyah Abrams finished fourth and advanced to the semi-finals in one of the fastest loser spots.

Grenada’s Meleni Rodney competed in heat 2 and unfortunately failed to finish.

 Jamaica’s Roniesha McGregor advanced to the semis from heat 3 after finishing second in 51.14.

Candice McLeod from Jamaica won heat 4 in 51.09 to progress.

Heat 5 was also won by a Jamaican as Stephenie Ann-McPherson won in 50.89.

Marileidy Paulino of The Dominican Republic ran the fastest time in qualifying to win heat 6 in 50.06.

Women’s Long Jump

Tyra Gittens of Trinidad & Tobago finished 10^th in the final with a distance of 6.60m.

Chantal Malone of the British Virgin Islands was also in the final and finished 12^th with a jump of 6.50.

 Malaika Mihambo of Germany jumped 7.00m for the gold medal while silver and bronze went to Brittney Reese of the USA and Ese Brume of Nigeria respectively.

Both Reese and Brume jumped 6.97 but Reese finished second on countback.

Men’s 200 Metres

 Four Caribbean men advanced to the semi-finals.

Jamaica’s Rasheed Dwyer won heat 1 of the men’s 200 metres in a time of 20.30.

Bronze medalist at the 2017 World Championships, Jereem Richards of Trinidad & Tobago, easily won heat 2 in 20.52 to advance.

Kyle Greaux of Trinidad & Tobago finished fourth in heat 3 in 20.77.

 Silver medallist back at the 2009 Berlin World Championships, Panama’s Alonso Edward, finished second in heat 4 in 20.60 to progress.

Yancarlos Martinez from The Dominican Republic finished second in heat 6 with a national record of 20.17 to advance to the semi-finals.

Julian Forte of Jamaica finished seventh in heat 7 with a time of 20.65.

Men’s 400 Metres Hurdles

Kyron McMaster ran 47.08 in the men’s 400 metres hurdles final and unbelievably finished fourth.

Karsten Warholm won his first Olympic gold medal in what may go down as the greatest performance in Olympic track and field history.

 The Norwegian ran a ridiculous world record of 45.94 to break his own previous mark of 46.70 by almost a full second.

American Rai Benjamin finished second in a new American record of 46.17 and Brazil’s Alisson Dos Santos finished third in a new personal best and South American record 46.72.

 On reflection, three-time Jamaica national 400m hurdles champion Janieve Russell can’t help but think that it was her destiny to compete in the event, after the fortuitous circumstances that led to her moving away from the long jump, a discipline near and dear to her heart.

After a superb run that led to her blowing away the country’s best athletes, in a season-best of 54.04 seconds, to claim the Women's 400m Hurdles title at the Jamaica National Championships, it was clearly a great choice but for a long time, one that wasn’t even on the cards.

In fact, Russell spent the majority of her junior career as a long jumper and competed successfully at the ISSA Boys and Girls Championships for her high school, Holmwood, in the event.  The 2019 World 400m hurdles silver medalist now believes wholeheartedly that the track itself called her to her destined event after the unexpected way she ended up competing in it.

"I believe the track was choosing my destiny for me because I really love long jump; that was my main event back in high school and by some chance, I was entered to the 400m Hurdles because someone on the team had to pull out. And then, I just continued, went to MVP and the coach said you are going to stick to the hurdles, not the long jump,” Russell explained.

Russell has had a solid career, and in addition to the three national titles, has picked up wins at the Commonwealth Games and World Cup.

Winning her third national title was a special moment for Russell, who admitted that she fully expected to be up against a challenging field. Her top priority though was to finish in an automatic spot, then channel all her energy to focusing on Tokyo.

"It is a tough field in the 400m hurdles event this year, so I am just using these trials to work on my mental state and I am just really happy to come out on top because my aim was just to be in the top three and just be on the Olympic team,” Russell said.

Off the back of a rectus femoris injury (acute tearing injury of the quadriceps) that she suffered in 2016, Russell insists that she has gotten stronger physically and mentally. 

"My MVP team and I have been working hard on our mental training, been working on my physical (fitness), ensuring that I am not injury prone, because, trust me, two weeks or one week before any trials I have always had an injury. I have been very careful this year, I have been eating properly, I have been doing everything by the book and I am just really grateful again to be out here by the grace of God to compete injury-free and to be on top."

Though she is a decorated nine-time gold medalist at the CARIFTA Games and a double gold medalist at the 2012 World Junior Championships, Russell’s ultimate aim is to match the feats of Deon Hemmings and Melanie Walker who both won gold medals for the country at the Olympic level.

"I will definitely try, as I said before it is a very tough field. I am just going out there with guts and to just represent my country, come out with a personal best and just do the best I can."

The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will run from July 23 to August 8.

When it comes to winning races that count, there is hardly a better sprinter than Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

In eight global finals, since she won her first Olympic title in Beijing in 2008, the Pocket Rocket has won six. She demonstrated that mettle once again on Friday night when she won her fourth national 100m title against a strong field on day two of the Jamaica National Championships in Kingston.

The two-time Olympic champion stormed to victory in 10.71, the second-fastest time run by anyone this year, only bettered by her world-leading 10.63 run at the same venue on June 5.

Using her explosive start to her advantage, she got away from the field that was unable to close as she flashed across the finish line.

Second was Shericka Jackson, who surprised everyone when she clocked a big lifetime best of 10.77 to win her semi-final just over an hour before. She ran an equally impressive 10.82 holding off the 2016 double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, who was third in 10.84.

Briana Williams, who at 19, was the youngest in the field, finished fourth in 11.01, which earned her a place at her first Olympic Games.

There was also another surprise in the men’s 100m as Tyquendo Tracey ran 10.00 flat to edge Yohan Blake 10.01 and an ecstatic Oblique Seville, who ran a personal best 10.04 for third and booked a spot to his very first Olympic Games.

There were two runaway winners in the 400m hurdles but the more impressive of the two was Jaheel Hyde who clocked a lifetime best 48.18 to win and also exceed the Olympic standard of 48.90, which means he is also going to Tokyo this summer.

He punched the air as he crossed the line and saw the flash time on the electronic clock on the infield.

Second went to Sean Rowe who stopped the clock at 49.60, just ahead of Kemar Mowatt, who was third in 49.61.

Janieve Russell ran away with the women’s race to win in a season-best 54.07.

Ronda Whyte was second in 54.94 while Leah Nugent was third in 54.98 in a close finish that saw Shian Salmon finish fourth in 55.00.

Jamaica looks set to qualify a men’s 4x100m relay team for the Tokyo Olympics this summer after running the second-fastest time in the world this year at a time trials meet at GC Foster yesterday.