No pressure on young Jamaicans after doping scandal - Weir
ByReuters
Updated 09/08/2013 at 07:37 GMT
The recent spate of Jamaican athletes failing dope tests has not left the island's world championships team feeling under pressure, Olympic 200 metres bronze medallist Warren Weir said on Thursday.
Jamaica sprinter Warren Weir (Reuters)
Image credit: Eurosport
Former world 100 record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic
relay silver medallist Sherone Simpson tested positive for the
stimulant oxilofrine at June's national championships and were
left out of the Jamaican team for the worlds in Moscow.
World 200 metres champion Veronica Campbell-Brown also
missed out as she is provisionally suspended after failing a
test for using a banned diuretic in May.
"There's no pressure," the quietly spoken Weir told
reporters at the training track near Luzhniki Stadium where the
world championships start on Saturday.
"We like to look on the positive side of life, we don't let
any negative news get the best of us. We try to stay on a clear
path and keep a steady head.
"We work with a young team and we are coping," Weir, wearing
a black, yellow and green Jamaican team top, said leaning over
the fence to talk to journalists after finishing his training
session.
The 23-year-old, a training partner of six-times Olympic
champion Usain Bolt, pointed out that Jamaica had plenty of up
and coming athletes to replace the big-name absentees.
"We're just glad we have a young team that's coming up and
we'll have a fresh team going into the championships.
"Our high school championship is doing tremendously good so
that means that the young at least will be moving up in the long
term," he said.
Weir burst on to the international scene at last year's
London Olympics where he completed a podium sweep for Jamaica in
the 200 behind Bolt and Yohan Blake.
Bolt is hot favourite to retain the world 200 title next
week but asked if he thought he could beat his taller, faster,
more famous team mate, Weir said: "Hopefully - it's stepping
stones.
"I've improved on the turn and strength-wise - I'm much
stronger than before and I'm running a more compact race, added
Weir, who set a personal best of 19.79 this year when winning
the Jamaican title in the absence of world record holder Bolt.
He returned to the Olympic stadium last month to win the
London Diamond League in 19.89, his last race before the world
championships.
Unsurprisingly, all the media attention in Moscow is on the
sport's biggest showman Bolt, leaving Weir, who started his
athletics career as a hurdler, to ply his trade unnoticed,
something he said helped him.
"People don't expect a lot, people expect Bolt this Bolt
that. That can help me a lot because I can go out there... and
focus on running my race to my expectation and just focus on
myself and nobody else."
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