“The Paris Olympics is the worst by far,” said a disappointed Stephen Francis, coach to Jamaican sprinters Kishane Thompson and Shericka Jackson. As to why he believes that well, first off, look at Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson, who got pulled from their races. Just hours ago, we watched Thompson give it his all in the Men’s 100m but came up short against America’s Noah Lyles—literally by milliseconds! Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, Jamaica just couldn’t catch a break in the 400m repechage round either.

In the Men’s 400m race, Jamaica had three guys representing them: Jevaughn Powell, Sean Bailey, and Deandre Watkins. While Powell made it to the semi-finals, both Bailey and Watkins missed out on automatic qualification yesterday—which meant they got another shot through the repechage round.

But here comes the bad news. Watkins didn’t even start; he was MIA in his lane! So all eyes were on Bailey now as Jamaica’s other hope. He even kicked things off strong but then everything went downhill fast. He unfortunately pulled up with an injury before he could even finish the race. 

Now we’re left with just Jevaughn Powell flying the flag for Jamaica in the men’s 400m race. It’s not completely over yet, but it’s safe to say Jamaican track and field is having a rough go right now in the Paris Olympics. Don’t believe me? Let’s break down what went down with our Jamaican athletes so far at the Paris Olympics.

Paris Olympics turns sour for Jamaican sprinters

First up, let’s chat about Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. The excitement was high for the Women’s 100m semi-final, but guess what? Fraser-Pryce didn’t even show up! She pulled out of the race for a reason that is still unclear but there have been some speculations. Then there’s Jackson; she also decided to skip out on both the 100m and 200m races.

But unlike Shelly-Ann, this wasn’t unexpected since she had already said a week earlier that health concerns were keeping her from competing. And how could we forget Elaine Thompson-Herah? She announced all the way back in June that she’d be sitting out due to an Achilles tendon injury. Remember when Usain Bolt used to single-handedly snag Jamaica three gold medals? Well, it’s kind of hard to swallow but so far no golds have come our way this year!

To add some salt to those wounds, Stephen Francis—the coach of these top sprinters—went public with his thoughts on the whole situation at the Paris Olympics. He didn’t hold back either: “The Olympics has been very weird. It has certainly been the worst that I’ve ever been to. It’s from the warm-up area to the trailing tracks to how they operate inside the stadium. It’s all very amateurish.”  Ouch! It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Jamaica. Are we in for more heartbreak, or is a turnaround on the way?

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