Orville Taylor | Eternal father… Anthem playing in Tokyo

At least twice, but more likely, thrice, the first stanza of our National Anthem will stream across the screen on TVJ and TVJSN, while we bite our lips, fight the tears, while mischievously saying, “Boom!” after the “Jamaica.”

By the time this column is out, we will be up anticipating the 100 metres finals. And if I am right, then our men will win two of the available medals, including the elusive gold. The smallest and most fragile man to have run as fast as he has, Oblique Seville will finally cut the tongue of the puss, who kept putting him down..

Also, despite the doubters and naysayers, we take home a third medal in the women’s equivalent. If I am wrong, then the substantive pain of the losses will be hurting far more than the bitter pills.

However, we would have already mined our first medal, and what I predict to be a bronze in the mixed 4x400 metres relay.

Hence I start my predictions for the World Athletics Championships, and as we savour our Blue Mountain Coffee or chocolate tea, we are en route to church giving thanks for the swinging of the pendulum back towards the black, gold and green.

Four medals already in the bag, by days end today.

Hopefully you would have paid attention to the 400 metres races; because in all of the discussion surrounding the medals and the experiment of Sydney McLaughlin Levrone, none of the external pundits seem to remember that at 48.57, Nikisha Pryce has a faster personal best then McLaughlin Levrone’s 48.74. Up to now, no American woman has ever run as fast as Pryce.

Our little warrior is gutsy and if she recovers any of her early 2024 form, she, like her homophone is not likely to go down easily.

Getting a medal in the men’s 400 is a bit of wishful thinking and that is the case for the 800 metres for both sexes. Nevertheless, all four athletes will at least make it to the semi finals in that event.

Ackera Nugent will medal in the 100 metres hurdles, and believe it or not, it is going to be shiny. By the way, the last two times Danielle Williams and Megan Tapper (she unfortunately withdrew because of injury) were overlooked, the experts were silenced. True, The American Masai Russell and Nigerian Tobi Amusan look awesome; but this is an event where athletes literally have to overcome multiple obstacles with zero mistakes.

Sentimentally, Fedrick Dacres is going to try very hard to reprise his silver medal from 2019. However, Ralford Mullings, who broke Dacres’ national record with a performance that would have won in Paris last year, looks very good for a glistening medal as well.

Shaneika Ricketts will find form in the triple jump and so will Jordan Scott. Carey McLeod is angry and he desperately wants a medal in the long jump. He may very well get it.

After getting qualified three relays by the skin of our teeth, our athletes will not squander the opportunity. Lest we forget, the likely female 4X100 quartet will comprise 50 per cent of the last successful team from Tokyo and half of the world record setting U20 squad, which has now come of age.

The Clayton twins, with two other children, twice ran times, that would qualify them today, among the 16 teams selected, and place them fifth in Budapest in 2023 and sixth in Paris last year. With practice and greater levels of preparedness and fitness as compared to the beginning of the year, this team, with a settled running order can go all the way.

Despite the controversies surrounding the exclusion of Bryan Levell, we should note that a relay team is more than the sum of its parts. It is literally a ‘team’ which requires the highest level of coordination and cooperation. Having the fastest set of men does not guarantee the fastest movement of the baton

Japanese and Canadian squads have consistently demonstrated this fact. And if we go back about 30 years, the French team broke the world record without a single individual member running sub-10. Simply put, having the right chemistry and not just biology, will have a greater impact on the physics as measured in seconds.

We are winning gold in the men’s 4x100, even if Levell does not participate. Better to leave him out if he has not practised with the squad, as he might get an ‘F’ and cough it up. Still I believe that he will demonstrate that his 9.82 and 19.69 were not flukes; and he will give us a medal.

Unless something has happened to Shericka Jackson since the Silesia Diamond League, where she beat Brittany Brown and all the other contenders not named Melissa Jefferson or Julien Alfred, one would be a fool to think that she is going to return from the half-track without a medal.

These are early days yet. However, when the final race is over, Rusheen McDonald will have run the leg of his life and we will claim our final medal in the 4x400.

Jamaicans became spoiled after 2009. Yet, we are the same set of resilient people and no one goes out there to be a lane filler.

Ashanti Moore will make the 200 final and run another personal record. ‘One Bob’, Antonio Watson will surprise many with his performance. Roshawn Clarke is going to do his season’s best as well.

In fact, almost all the athletes will come close to their season’s or personal best. The best might not be good enough to medal, but it is good enough for me

Jamaica land we love.

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com