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The Jamaican sprint legend slammed the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association for their negligence that let down the men's 4x400m relay team, making the Paris Olympics one of the most disappointing for Team Jamaican.
American sprint legend Bert Cameron has slammed the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association for letting down the men’s 4x400m relay that missed the Paris Olympic Games.
The 2024 edition of the Olympic Games was the first time the Jamaican relay team missed the Olympic stage in many years. The team hoped to qualify for the Olympic Games at the World Athletics Relays but missed.
The JAAA then planned for two events where the team would qualify but they flopped. The first event was at the NACAC New Life Invitational in The Bahamas and the JAAA/Puma National Senior Championships at the National Stadium.
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The two attempts proved futile with Team Jamaica clocking 2:59.73 in Nassau and 2:59.87 in Jamaica. According to the Paris Olympic organisers, the top 14 teams in each relay race at the 2024 World Athletics Relays qualified for the Olympic Games.
The remaining two teams were to be selected through their ranking for the period between December 31, 2022, and June 30, 2024.
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“The athletes are not the ones who let us down. It’s the management and the coaches because they knew from a long time what it was going to take for us to be in the 4x400m, and they neglected that and tried to do other things,” the 1983 world 400m champion told Jamaica Observer.
He added that the relay team missing the Olympic Games was one of the most disappointing things and he hardly enjoyed watching the Games.
The former Commonwealth Games 400m champion noted that he is always excited to watch the 400m and 4x400m relay and having no Jamaicans in the men's relay was a huge setback.
“For me, it’s one of the biggest disappointments because I look back from 1948 until now, Jamaica has always had a relay team. We might not win gold medals but we always represented well. So, for us to go to the Olympics and not even have a say in the 4x400m is disappointing,” he said.
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“I love watching the 400m and 4x400m relay so it’s a dark cloud over my face knowing that four of the top quarter-milers in Jamaica — that is in the top 20 — and we were not represented in the 4x400m. It’s a big letdown.”
He added that some of the decision-makers in the athletics association have never stepped on the track for a race and might never understand what it takes for athletes to work hard and miss huge opportunities of competing at the Olympics or World Championships.
“I take it that some of those people who are doing that and making these decisions, especially the selectors, they’ve never put on spikes and go out there and run. They don’t know how it feels just to go out there at the Olympics or the World Championships so they just do whatever they feel like and put a mediocre team out there and try to make it up later,” he said.
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