Former 100m world-record holder Asafa Powell won the Jamaican Championships 100m final in 9.84 seconds (race video here), while Olympic silver medalist Yohan Blake failed to reach the final in Kingston on Friday night.
Olympic and World champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce took the women’s 100m title in 10.79 seconds, matching the fastest time in the world since 2013 (race video here). Veronica Campbell-Brown, a two-time Olympic 200m champion, was third in 11.06.
“I need the races to get myself into shape,” Fraser-Pryce said in a broadcast interview, adding she came into the competition with hamstring pain. “I don’t need to make a statement to the world. … It’s not about proving anything to anybody because, as I’ve said, I’ve already proven myself, over and over.”
The results should send Powell, Fraser-Pryce and Campbell-Brown to the World Championships, with four total Jamaican 100m sprinters in each event, and will keep Blake from going to Worlds in the 100m. Fraser-Pryce was already a safe bet to go to Worlds as the defending 100m and 200m champion.
Usain Bolt isn’t running at the Jamaican Championships but will surely go to Worlds — Aug. 22-30 in Beijing — in both the 100m and 200m as defending champion in both events.
Powell, 32, hasn’t won an individual global championship medal since 100m bronze at the 2009 World Championships. He missed the 2013 Worlds due to a doping ban but has surged since returning. He’s been the fastest Jamaican man this year and last year and is tied for No. 2 in the world this year at 9.84.
Of Worlds in Beijing, Powell said he’s “going there for the gold medal,” according to The Associated Press.
Blake, 25, clocked 10.36 seconds to place sixth in his semifinal earlier Friday, failing to qualify for the final. He is also entered in the 200m at the Jamaican Championships, so he could still make it to Worlds.
Blake hasn’t broken 10 seconds in all six of his 100m finishes since the first of his two season-ending hamstring injuries in 2013.
Blake was Bolt’s biggest rival in 2011 and 2012. After Bolt false-started out of the 2011 Worlds 100m final, Blake went on to win. Blake defeated Bolt in both the 100m and 200m at the 2012 Jamaican Olympic trials before Bolt returned the favor in London, relegating Blake to 100m and 200m silver.
Blake is three years younger than Bolt and eight years younger than Justin Gatlin, the world’s fastest man in 2014 and 2015. Blake has said he wants to retire before 2020, which would make the Rio 2016 Olympics his second and final Games, should he qualify.
Jamaica’s second fastest woman in the 100m, Elaine Thompson, opted not to run the 100m at the Jamaican Championships but is entered in the 200m with Fraser-Pryce.
