Warren Weir surprised the world in the 2012, when a 22-year-old sprinter made his first senior international team and walked away from the London 2012 Olympics with a bronze medal in the 2012. He was only overcome by his titled compatriots Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake, who also happened to be his training partners at the Racers Track Club.
“I came to London as a newbie, everyone though I was a fluke, having made that national team. But I knew, I had a lot in the tank, I gave it my all and walked away with a medal and a personal best of 19.84. Having done that, I got a lot of respect from the worldwide public and local fans,” says Weir, adding that the Jamaican fans are hard to please. “But that only means, they believe in you, they think that you are capable of doing great things,” he smiles.
Not many followers of athletics remember, that Weir actually started off as a 100m and 110m hurdles runner. In 2008 he made the national team in the 110 m hurdles for the IAAF World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, and went through to the semi-final.
An aspiring hurdler was the Calabar High School captain. Weir still takes pride of his alma mater, and every year before the Boys and Girls Championships, or simply the Champs, the biggest and the most popular athletics competition in Jamaica, he comes to the Calabar camp to give a motivational speech to the school’s current team. And during the days of the competition you can see Weir at the stadium supporting young athletes in green and black uniforms.
However, Weir himself didn’t capture any Champs’ medals. In fact, he was plagued by injuries for a fairly long period of time. But everything changed, when he joined coach Glenn Mills at the Racers Track Club. “He told me right away: “Forget about hurdling. I’ll make you run faster, I’ll make you an Olympic champion,” Weir recalls.
For Warren the Olympic gold is still the number one goal, but he has already achieved a lot: Olympic bronze, one year later - he won a silver at the Moscow 2013 IAAF World Championships, clocking a personal best of 19.79. “Overcoming injuries, stress fracture, transitioning from the 110m hurdles to the 200m… It wasn’t easy, but me and coach Mills were sticking to the program, and it worked,” Warren explains.
Weir, now 24 years old, keeps working hard every day towards his first major individual gold, but the idea of taking part in the inaugural World Relays excites him, as well. Especially, the rarely contested 4x200m relay and a potential Word Record in this event. The current all-time best mark in this relay, 1:18.68, was set in 1994. “My teammates are multi World Record holders. I need one too! So if everybody is fit and ready to go, we’ll surely be looking to run fast and dominate, and we’ll see if we can come back with a World Record,” Weir promises.
Jamaica’s World and Olympic medallist in the 200m Warren Weir is looking forward to taking on the rivals in the 4x200m at the inaugural IAAF World Relays Bahamas 2014
