‘200M? MAYBE’
400m standout Allen not ruling out another event
I don’t have a specific time I want to achieve . ... An improvement is an improvement; you may not improve the way you want, but eventually you improve, and it’s a step forward.
NATIONAL 400M champion Nathon Allen says even though his focus continues to be his pet event – 400m – he has not ruled out competing in the 200m or another event if he believes he can excel at it. Allen, a 4x400m Olympics silver medallist and 2017 World Championships 400m finalist, currently attends Auburn University. The former St Jago star only competed in the 200m in 2016, where he clocked a personal best of 20.70 in the semi-final, finishing fourth in the Class One final at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships. “I don't know [if will run another event] because the season hasn’t really started as yet. You haven’t ran; you don’t really know how your body feels, so you don’t know where you are. But if, in time, I believe I have the potential to do something good in a next event, then I would go to my coach and try to talk to him,” Allen said.
PERSONAL FOCUS
“In college, it’s mostly what the coaches want. It’s not what you want to do. My personal focus is my 400m. But if I can do something good in the 200m, I would want to give it a try. The 200m isn’t my first love, and my focus will be the 400m, my main event, but I am not disregarding another event,” he said. Apart from running a personal best of 44.19 at the World Championships in London this year, he ran the fastest 4x400m relay leg by a Jamaican when he clocked 43.48 at the South-East Indoor Championship in June, and broke the SEC Outdoor Championships freshman record in a time of 44.52 in May. And although the promising quarter-miler has set his sights on making continuous improvement this coming year, he will not limit himself by setting targets. “I don’t have a specific time I want to achieve. From I started track, I always hoped to improve. An improvement is an improvement; you may not improve the way you want, but eventually you improve, and it’s a step forward. I just hope next year at the end of the season, I can say, ‘Thank You, God, for helping me to improve,” he said. Even though the 22-year-old aspires to be the best in the world, he is slowly taking things in stride. “I want to be the best in the world. That would be the ultimate target. But I can’t get up and say next year I want to run 45.3 [seconds] because that would be like a limit to yourself, and I am just hoping to improve. Once I can say I did better than before, I can say that’s an improvement. I just want to stay healthy and say at the end of the season that I have improved. He added: “At this time, I am quite a way off world records, so I can’t get up speaking about world records. I am just speaking about improvement, and wherever improvement takes me, I will be very happy.”