WORLD 400-metre record holder Michael Johnson has thrown his support behind the proposed two-leg staging of the USA versus Jamaica Challenge series, which is being negotiated between both track and field federations.
“Absolutely!,” the American replied to Observer queries as to whether he was in support of the mouthwatering head-to-head match-up between the world’s two big athletics powerhouses.
“I think that would be, depending on how it’s presented. I think it could be very good for the sport,” Johnson added.
The Challenge, which was suggested by USA Track and Field’s CEO, Doug Logan, in March of this year, has been the subject of negotiations between the Americans and the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Associations (JAAA)….Read More
he would back it but michael needs 2 keep it real this clash happened last year in bejing & this year in belin what else is there 2 prove?
DITTO, DITTO, DITTO.
I strongly believe its a waste of time and think the U.S just want to do this because : 1 the only reason why they the U.S want to compete, is because of they were second best on the last two major events ( Olympics and Worlds) and 2 they dont want to accept that we are not happy that a little country has raised the bar and took away the mantle from thier grasp. What the U.S should do is to used the impact of this little Island as motivation for the future. They need not to be jealous now because they had thier moments and needs to accept that we cannot always be winners but must be gracious in defeat.
quite so
Open up your minds! If Jamaca can beat the americans sprinters again then bring it on. Maybe the 4 x 100 meter relay won’t drop the stick this time or be out of the zone. As a team america will win easly. Its not just about the sprints, 100, 200, 4 x 100, or the 400 hurdles. its about the whole team effort. The 800-1500, mile, 2 mile, high jump long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus, pole fault, javilin, hammer throw, etc, and its about the money. How many people will come and pay to see this meet? thousands will come whether you come or not. There were a few sprinters that was not on the team last year that will be on the 2010 this year. Bolt is only one man, he can’t win the meet by himself. Many athletes in other countries will yeild to defeat but the american team will not go away.
With all due respect Michael Dillard. I believe you have mistaken with regards to the events that are up for challenge. firstly, The only field event being discussed is the long jump, and that is still up for debate. Events will primarily be challenged on the track. secondly I am not sure that there will be any 800m or 1500m races included in the challege at all. those races are not even being discussed. This dramatically takes away just about all of the advantages that you were eluding to. I personally feel that jamaica would benefit enourmously from contesting more field events, not because they stand any chance of winning in these events, but because it provides enourmous oppertunities for growth and development in those areas. as for the the 400m and lower…….It is a foregone conclusion. Jamaica wins handily on both the mens side and the womens side. I say this because as good of a season that jamaican athletes enjoyed in 2009, the team was missing many top athletes. Of those athletes that were present in Berlin, more than a few of them competed having not fully recovered from surgeries and injuries. Missing athletes included: Yohan Blake, Sherone simpson (Kne surgery), Nesta Carter , Marvin anderson Shery-ann Brooks,to name a few. Of those that competed injured you have the likes of: Asafa Powell (ankle), shelly-ann Fraser (abdomenal surgery), and VCB (infected toe). Berlin was not a showcase of the strongest possible jamaican team. not by any stretch of the imagination. the best is yet to come.
As I said before let them get it on with a dule meet? Sound like to me you don’t have heart!
I don’t need heart. I’ve Got Bolt, Asafa, Fraser, M.Walker, K.Stewart, Frater, N,Carter Mullings, Blake, VCB, Foster-Hylton, Golding Clark, S. Simpson, A. Mcgluahlin, s.wiliams, A.Bailey. All of these athletes have one thing in common. they all have a gold medal in international competition at the hjighest level in the past two years. all with the ecception of Yohan Blake and shericka Williams whom has an unprecedented 4 silvers to her credit over the past two years. How many US sprinters can you name with these type of accolades to their credit. I would love to see a duel. I just don’t believe that it will prove anything beyond the obvious.
The american team will never go away! They will never give up! and they will never give in! and you know this!
who said anything about going away. I wish to see America, Jamaica and all other countries stick around and have very successful track programs. thats how you grow the spoprt. I am not afraid to hear that Jamaica wins some and lose some. it’s apart of life. and life is about the journey, never the destination. There is now point of arrival in any aspect of life. it is a journey untill death takes us. think of premier League soccer. many successful programs, and billions of fans worldwide. many different programs manage to find success in the same league. They all need each other and mor importantly they all need each other to be successful as individual teams and then as a league. the NBA, MLB, NHL, NFL all understand that this is key if A league wants to have their product be successful. track and field needs to understand this as well. Marketing is another key ingredient, but that story is for another time.
You just don’t get It! I’m quite sure you know about boxing! Ali, Duran, Norton, etc. Some of these fighter’s could inflict fear into other fighter. Did Ali fear Forman? Did Tommy hears fear Duran? Mike Tyson had no fear of anyone. You need to get this in your head. Ther american team has no fear of the Jamaca team know matter how many times you knock them down. They understand that the jamacan team has raised the bar! So what! you think the american team is going to tuck their tails and walk away! please! you might want that to happen but its not happening.
Michael Michael Michael Dillard It’s time to emancipate your self from that mental fish bowl that you seem to so happily live in. yes I do know about boxing. I’ve just witnessed you make mention of some great fighters and how they feared nobody.you are right. I don’t get it. what the hell does fear have to do with anything. I see runners that can’t break the 10 second barrier line-up against the likes of Bolt, Gay Asafa, Thompson and Bailey every week, during the track and field season. They will never back down, and why should anyone expect them to. these runners spend their lives training to have these types of oppertunities. They may walk away with third, fourth or a fifth place finish, but as long as they accomplished the things that they set out to work on, that might just be a moral victyory for them. Just to know that they just ran a PB or a NR. why are you implying that one man should have reason to fear another. Hell, I have not competed as a runer in over 15 years, and i would still lace em up and line up against Tyson Gay or Asafa, even if it means I get my ass kicked. I have some good friends that are sprinters. they are able to clock about 10.5 seconds in the 100m. they would love the chance to run against Usian or Tyson, but guess what? they’ve never had the honour of being invited to any such high profile meets. win or lose, fear has no part in this conversation.
I don’t think it’s a waste of time nor did it happen last year. I don’t think minnie or jah are heeding the intrinsic differences of a two team track meet. Such a competition would bring an amount of both teams’ runners that you may not be as attentive to into play. Then we’d have more of a “home vs opponent” track meet rather than a +100 team competition where the winning team has maybe 16 points total. All in all, one team may have top positions that dwarf others but when you bring the track teams(or the top 4 athletes available for each discipline) into the point count for all four of the 100, 100 hurdles 4×1, 200, 400, 400 hurdles, & the 4×4, (and maybe the high jump, the javelin throw, the triple jump, the hammer throw, long jump, pole vault, discuss, and the shot put) and have both males and females perform, it’s a different meet from what you see on tv.
Don’t forget(if you even recognized in the first place) that the u.s. has the 4 fastest 400, 200 ,110 hurdles, & 400 hurdles guys on 1 team… I expect the guys to blow out Jam and the girls 4×4 should be in the u.s’s pocket too. The russian girls are the only one’s who stand a chance against them…
Jantzsen Noel you dreamer. it’s obvious that you believe that jamaica’s success is a fluke. I would probanly be insulted if I thought you had a clue what you were talking about. This proposed meet is not meant to be a Track and field meet, nor is it proposed to be a Regular Track meet. what is being discussed right now is a meeting of the sprints. 100m, 200m and 400m, with some hurdles and relays throw in for good measure. All this hammer throw, javelin, and discuss that you throw in are quite confusing, the Us does not have world dominance in any of those ares either. they just happen to be ahead of jamaica in field events right now because Jamaica is just now starting to even consider developing athletes in those areas. The USA is out to reclaim dominance in the sprints and nothing else. thats what this proposed meet is about. not field events. even if they were to whip Jamaica’s ass on the Field. they would prove nothing because they still wouldn’t be a world force in that area. as for your ideas about beating jamaica on the track?……You’ve obviuosly been living in a cave the last two years. in my opinion Jamaica has been the dominant sprint force since 2004, but that has gone largely unnoticed. in 2004 we were banging on the doors of sprinting dominance. in 2008 we blasted it straight off it’s hinges like a bolt of lightning.
I say we don’t need to prove nothing to anyone. We did it all in the highest fora; Beijing and Berlin. If such a meet is to raise money for the development of T&F in Jamaica, then maybe. Let the Americans wait. We will meet them again in the Diamond League and in meets in Europe this year. What we did was no fluke, the Americans just can’t stand being second or third best.
again i strongly agree with you pc oonu fi wait we did it in 2008 and if any1 thought it was a fluke we bettered the feat in 2009 so a wha so? oonu wait you will get another assing in 2011
First of all its called track and field and we won more medals at the olympic games than any other country PERIOD so jamaica will never be better than us in track AND FIELD, AND FIELD AND FIELD. second enjoy your success I’m glad to see jamaica doing well just like canada in the 90s and the westeners in the 70s but it always comes back around to the US and thats what makes us special. I hear you name alot of second tier athletes winning silver, which to me seems like a double standard because if the US wins silver then we for some reason didnt have a good meet lol. People are so used to seeing US win gold that anything less is a failure. the same cant be said for carribean coutnries and the reason they wouldnt bother discussing any of the other events is because if it was a real meet then we know the US would kill any other country out there. This is the equivalent of playing 3 on 3 basketball with all the regulations but in the real game its 5 on 5 and that changes the dynamics altogether.
And if you want to call yourselves the best because of 1 olympic and 1 world championship then let us look at history and see who has the most golds in major championships. yeah u guessed right the US. we were missing walter dix who is a 9.8 sprinter. put him on the team with rodgers, gay and patton and your 4×1 has no chance. walter dix snatches a lead on first leg, its even on the 2nd and 3rd leg and im guessing since asafa powell(during a period where he was running 9.7 low) couldnt run down leroy dixon who is a 10 flat sprinter, I dont think he would catch doc patton who is a 9 second sprinter. throw gay on 3rd with bolt and bolt wont make that ground up either. I will give you guys the 100 and 200 with US coming in 2nd, 4th and 5th in the 100 and 2nd 3rd and 4th in 200m. open 400 we go 1,2,3,4. 4×400 we go first on both sides. on the women side you guys literally have a chance but not in the 400 and 4×400. the hurdles are ours in the 110 and 400h(1,2,3 since your guy couldnt make it to the finals at berlin) on the men side. on the women we take 110 and ill give the benefit of the doubt and say u win the 400h but we will take 2, 3.
BOTTOM LINE AFTER POWELL, BOLT AND FRASER (WHOM HASNT RUN FASTER THE JETER) YOU DONT HAVE THE TOOLS TO BEAT THE US. PERIOD.
b morton, just a quick question…do u believe that if the sport of track & field was clean in….lets say from 1980 to 2007 that east germany and the us team would have won less medals and the jamaican team would have won more?
good food for thought tony roots its so unfair
B Morton u shud be ashamed of yourself, trying to compare likkle Jamaica with a population of 2.5 million with the USA with a population of 300 million. If you did a medal per population count we would be waaaaaaaaay ahead of you. We are the real superpower in T&F, and as tony roots says if the playing field was always level we would have been whupping your asses from way back when.
U ever asked yourself how is it Jamaican athletes always won in your collegiate circuit but could never beat u at the world levels? the answer is ‘juice’. Far too many of u were on ‘juice’, that was the difference. Now that u can’t hide behind juice anymore the true champions are ahead.
So go and do your homework B morton and the truth will set u free.
And b morton…be careful about Jeter she will be caught soon.
Funny how b morton forgets how many of those gold and silver sprint medals in the Olympic and World games were from the use of drugs and not from actual talent.
B Morton also forgets how many of her current sprinters were born and raised in Jamaica and other Caribbean nations, so again, it’s not like you are producing your own talent.
Between your drugs and importation of talent, how can you claim any sort of superiority with a straight face.
The fact is that with the population of Jamaica and the population of the USA, if you were half as talented is you delusionally think you are, Jamaica (and every other Caribbean nation) would never stand a chance against you, and the USATF would not be pushing for this sporting event in an attempt to reclaim some sort of glory after their dismal showing.
What you should really be contemplating (instead of hurling veiled insults) is why the USA’s fall from sprinting supremacy was so profoundly absolute right after the fall of Balco.
Jamaica is a developing country, with 2.7m people why would Americans really argue with us about track and field. Maybe you guys need to pick on a bigger country. You sound stupid. Undenyably though Jamaican are really stepping up their paste.
Congrats
B Morton, it is with great sadness that i report to you that ‘ The Pharmacy’ has shut down. Keep dreaming, I know it’s a bitter pill to swallow now that the mighty has fallen it’s hard to conceived that such a tiny nation has done so much damage to the almigthy USA ego.
And to be honest, the results will only be the same come Daegu because everyone other country is coming out of the woods to claim their rightful position that has been denied them for so long because some ill-gotten person have no moral or integrity to play fair.
B Morton, Karma can be a bitch sometimes. For decades, things have gone the USA ‘s way with lot of cheating ( paramount) and the lid has finally blown off so now the world can see the real athletes from the fakers. Last but not least I guarantee you that Carmellita Jeter will be found out. One love!