Most track and field athletes would have quit the sport years ago if they had gone through the injury struggles endured by Yohan Blake.

The youngest World 100m champion in history had the prime of his career significantly affected by a number of injuries, none more devastating than a torn hamstring he sustained at the Glasgow Grand Prix in 2014.

Blake felt a sharp pain during the 100m race that was initially diagnosed as a cramp but, upon further evaluation, was determined to be a hamstring tear so bad that his muscle actually came off the bone.

Blake had to have surgery where they re-attached the muscle to the bone using aluminum, causing him to miss the rest of the 2014 season.

During the most recent episode of Out D Blocks on the Sportsmax.tv YouTube Channel, the 2012 double Olympic silver medallist reflected on his immediate reaction to the injury.

“When that happened to me, I went into the hills for two weeks. No one knew where I was and I cried,” Blake said, noting that he naturally had doubts about every returning to his old form.

So how did he get out of this funk and decide to move forward? Self-affirmation is how.

“I finally talked to God and said listen, you are the second fastest man on the planet. What are you doing?”

“I talked to Brigitte (Foster-Hylton) because she had the same injury and came back and won the World Championships. I talked to my manager and my team and came back and started to do little training and felt more confident,” Blake added.

Fast forward 10 years later, Blake, now 34, just had a season to forget on the track by his standards.

He had a 100m season’s best of 10.16 done in May and failed to make Jamaica’s team to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Nagging injuries was the main contributor to his lack of success last season according to Blake, with even the injury suffered back in 2014 still affecting him to this day.

“I still struggle with a lot of injuries,” he said.

“Last year, I tried to change up my routine being more specific in my lifting and my running and I got some aches and pains, even from my previous injury when my muscle came off my bone and they had to re-attach it with aluminum so it’s a bit rigid. It bothers me a lot,” he added.

In a lot of situations with athletes who suffer major injuries, they are able to put out full effort in training but once they get into the competition, a metal block affects their performance due to a fear of getting hurt again.

Blake says this has also affected him since the injuries.

“It has. Training with Glen Mills, before I left, he said to me ‘Yohan, if you’re going out there with that mindset, it’s better you stop,’” he said.

“From that, I changed my routine. You’re still going to pick up niggles along the way and the wear and tear of the body. Usain said ‘Yohan, when you reach a certain age you’re going to feel this.’ A lot of times when I was training with Usain, he started to feel some pain and everything and he’d tell me I’d feel some of these pains and I shrugged it off because I was young and I finally understand what he meant,” he added.

As previously stated, athletes who have suffered the injuries he’s suffered usually don’t last as long in the sport as he has.

With all the injuries, Blake still holds the title of second fastest man to ever walk this earth.

“Thank God for what I have achieved because not many persons in the world can say they have achieved what I have achieved,” he said.

“There comes a point in time when you understand, even though you have people saying quit or stop, those are the things that drive me. You can’t tell me to quit. They can’t tell me to quit. They can say anything but they can’t make me quit. I have to make me quit,” he added.

At any major championship, a strong performance in the semi-finals usually makes an athlete’s confidence skyrocket heading into the round where the medals will be decided.

According to reigning Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred, this was exactly the case for her in Paris in August.

After getting through her heat comfortably in 10.95, Alfred, 23, was drawn in a brutal second semi-final that also included 2023 World Champion Sha’Carri Richardson and was supposed to have 10-time World and three-time Olympic Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

Fraser-Pryce failed to turn up for the race meaning Alfred still had Richardson to contend with.

“When I saw the line-up, I was like man, I have to run! I really have to run tomorrow. I kept thinking about how I’m going to execute,” she said on a recent episode of Out D' Blocks on the SportsMax TV YouTube Channel.

“I had to psych myself up mentally,” she added.

The execution couldn’t have gone more perfectly for the St. Lucian as she blasted out of the blocks, getting a big lead on Richardson before shutting down towards the line to win in 10.84.

She then repeated in the final, speeding to a personal best and national record 10.72 to win her country’s first ever Olympic medal.

Alfred says her semi-final performance gave her the confidence she needed to produce her best in the final.

“After that semi-final, I gained so much confidence,” she said.

Crossing that line and executing such a good race and even slowing down in the last five metres of the race, I knew I had it in the bag as long as I go out there and do it in the final,” Alfred added.

The World Indoor 60m champion said the performance in the semi-final helped her to be calmer in the final.

“I was as relaxed as possible. The way that semi-final turned out was the best thing that happened to me because I gained all the confidence,” she said.

“Just going back to the warm-up area, my coach kept telling me we’re not done yet, we have one more round,” she added.

When an athlete makes history for their country in the world’s biggest sporting spectacle, the Olympic Games, the typical reaction from that country is some sort of acknowledgement or celebration of that historic performance.

Unfortunately, this has yet to be the case for Jamaican shot putter Rajindra Campbell.

Campbell became the first Jamaican man to ever medal in a throwing event at an Olympic Games when he threw 22.15m to win bronze in Paris on August 3.

Four days after Campbell’s performance, Roje Stona also made history, throwing a personal best 70.00m for gold in the discus, becoming Jamaica’s first ever Olympic champion in a throwing event.

In the latest episode of SportsMax TV’s Out D Blocks hosted by Leighton Levy and D Major, the 28-year-old national record holder spoke candidly about the lack of acknowledgment and appreciation back home for these historic achievements.

“We have talked about it. The only problem is, as what Omar McLeod mentioned at trials about the 2016 Olympics, we don’t feel the appreciation from Jamaica,” Campbell said, referencing Omar McLeod’s comments after the Olympic trials where he spoke about not feeling appreciated by Jamaica after his Olympic gold medal performance eight years ago.

“You see the kind of celebration Julien Alfred got? I’m not expecting the same here but Jamaica has such a rich history in track and field, I don’t think the athletes are really appreciated for what they do,” he added.

Campbell, born in Ocho Rios, moved to Joplin, Missouri in 2018 to attend Missouri Southern State University where he attended for three years.

He noted that he’s received more of a celebration for his achievement in Joplin than back home in Jamaica.

“I met with the school President on Wednesday of last week and he explained certain things they have in store for me and there is a big sign on campus that people come in and see. It’s a different celebration taking place here compared to Jamaica,” he said.

As Campbell noted, whenever a Jamaican is in an event, Jamaicans expect them to do well. He wonders whether more appreciation would be given to the athletes when they do well if people understood the sacrifices they make on a daily basis.

“The love for Jamaica will never die. We will always continue to represent but, at the same time, the amount of sacrifice it takes to get to the level we are, something that I’ve found is once there is a Jamaican in an event, you’re expected to do well. How do we get there?”

“When you actually get there it’s like ‘Oh! I expected it or I knew you could do it.’ At the same time, there’s a journey that nobody really understands,” he continued.

He added that there has been no communication to him or Stona regarding any sort of celebration or acknowledgement in Jamaica.

Out D Blocks can be seen live every Thursday on the SportsMax TV YouTube channel.