By Kayon Raynor
KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters) - As Jamaica prepares to select their world championship team, the exhilarating days of the nation's male sprinters, led by Usain Bolt, dominating the world are gone, two of the Caribbean island's top coaches say.
While the country's female sprinters continue to excel, the men do not rank among the year's best in either the 100 or 200 meters.
"It appears we are going through another one of those cycles," coach Glen Mills, who guided Bolt to eight Olympic gold medals and 14 world championship medals between 2007 and 2017, told Reuters.
"I think that there is talent in the junior level that could develop, which could move us once again to the forefront,” said the optimistic Mills two days before the June 20-23 national championships which will help determine the Jamaican team for the Sept. 28-Oct. 6 world championships in Doha.
Stephen Francis, who brought two-times world 100m bronze medalist and former record holder Asafa Powell to global attention, blamed a variety of reasons for the recent decline.
“You find that a combination of bad coaching, bad environment, bad influences and a lack of discipline and all that kind of thing are responsible for the fall,” Francis said in an interview with Reuters.
"I stated a couple of years ago that there was going to be a problem with male sprinting in Jamaica."
The saving grace has been the female sprinters led by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, a five times global champion at 100m, and Rio double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson, the coaches believe.
“Our female program looks very lucrative with our top females over the years, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson and of course we have quite a large number of youngsters including Briana Williams (NYSE:WMB) (World under-20 double gold medalist) among others,” Mills said.
Francis added: "Shelly and Elaine are there, but you have others in the pipeline who one expects in two or three or four years will replace them.
"But not so for the men, I don't know if anybody can say where the next good talent is coming from."
Still there is optimism that Jamaica could win as many as 10 medals in Doha.
"I think we have at least three events where we have prospects on the male side… obviously the discus (2019 world leader (Fedrick Dacres), the sprint hurdles (Olympic and world champion Omar McLeod), maybe the 400m and maybe the long jump,” Francis said.
“On the female side, there are a whole lot of events where we have medal prospects."
Fraser-Pryce and Thompson are among the year's fastest in the 100, Janeek Brown and Danielle Williams in the 100m hurdles and the women's 4x100m relay team.