Wilson hurdles from Hydel to Clemson

The headlines will rightly point to World Under-20 champion Kerrica Hill as the next great Jamaican 100 metres hurdler. However, her former Hydel High School teammate Oneka Wilson has a bright future ahead of her too, and she has taken her talents to Clemson University and the capable hands of Lennox Graham.

Wilson, winner at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Championships in a record time of 13.00 seconds, has just begun a four-year scholarship at Clemson, and Graham who has coached World finalists Danielle and Shermaine Williams and two-time Commonwealth 400 metres hurdles champion Kyron McMaster, is looking forward to working with the girl lodged at number three in the yearly under-20 world list.

“It’s awesome what we’re able to produce and credit to her coach, Corey Bennett, because he has the number one and the number three junior in the world,” Graham praised.

Wilson’s record run concluded a successful defence of the title she won in 2021.

“For me, I see my responsibility as continuing what Corey started and fine-tuning as the student matures, so trying to teach her whatever I discover that I’m not yet aware of that I think will help her to get better,” Graham said.

Wilson took down the 2017 time of 13.12 seconds and made up for a lingering disappointment. In 2021, she reached the final at the World Under-20 Championships in Nairobi but was barred from competing because of COVID-19 protocols.

Only Hill and Alexis James, who Wilson beat at Boys and Girls’ Championships, lay ahead of her on the 2022 world under-20 list with times of 12.77 and 12.87 seconds, respectively.

The new coach/athlete pairing will utilise a step-by-step approach.

“It’s a process. Every hurdler comes through with a few bad habits which their previous coach was trying to correct and it wasn’t corrected. So it is my job to continue that. It’s not easy when an athlete has achieved and earned a certain amount of success with that technique and then you are here trying to say, ‘hey, let’s try to work on this or work on that.’ So it’s dependent on how flexible mentally that student-athlete is,” said the man who coached Danielle to the World title in 2015.

Wilson attacks each barrier in all her races and it’s an attribute Graham has noted. “It does have a big upside in that she is very aggressive, and of course, the hurdles is one that you’re not going to be successful at if you don’t have that aggression,” he observed.

“Just in talking to her, she seems like a very positive young lady and Corey has lots of positive things to say about her, and I trust his judgement as the person who brought her this far,” Graham said of his early impression of the youngster.

“She has the tools,” the former Kingston College and Johnson C. Smith head coach concluded, “and I’m blessed to be working with her.”