Blake blames lack of practice for relay fumble
Published:Saturday | August 7, 2021 | 12:09 AM
TOKYO, Japan:
With Jamaica’s male 4x100 metres team failing in its bid to win a medal in the final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Yohan Blake is calling for more baton exchange practice ahead of major championships.
A mistake between Jhevaughn Minzie and Julian Forte on the first exchange basically ended the Jamaicans’ chances of medalling in the event, with an eventual fifth-place finish in 37.84 seconds, ending the country’s streak after back-to-back wins at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games.
“There was a big fumble at the start that caused the mess-up. I tried to pull it back on the third leg, and we were hoping that (Oblique) Seville could have held on, but I guess it wasn’t enough,” Blake said. “We were expecting to win, but as I said there was a major delay between first and second and that caused the pace to get away from us from there.”
“It’s tough, I’m not going to beat up on anyone but the (JAAA) has to look on this going forward. This shows us that we need to do more practice and changes going forward because most of the guys in the team are new and don’t really know each other,” Blake added.
The event was won by Italy in 37.50 with Great Britain, 37.51, taking second place and Canada, 37.70, winning the bronze.
THE PROBLEM
Blake stated that the team had not completed a full relay training session ahead of the competition, due to persons having to first focus on their individual events at the championships.
“We haven’t had any practise at all besides during the warm up, because when we reached (in Japan), we had to quarantine. We didn’t get to train until about two days before the start of the championships and we didn’t get to train for the relay, because we had to focus on our specific events so it was a bit tough. But going forward, we have to look into this,” said Blake.
“As you can see, it’s just a lack of good baton passes, the speed and everything else is there,” Blake said.
Jamaica was forced to cancel their pre-Olympics training camp because of the COVID-19 situation in Japan.
Meanwhile, Blake said that despite missing out on a medal, he is encouraged to push himself harder for the rest of the season and next year’s World Championships campaign.
“This forced me to think about the next one (Olympics) but I don’t know, I have so much to do still. To be honest, I am not going to complain, I have had a great career. I am still the second-fastest man in history, that’s not going to change for now. But I am definitely looking forward to the rest of the season. I still know what I can do and I am going to work towards that,” Blake said.