Blake avoids media after failing to qualify for 100 final in Oregon Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

EUGENE, Oregon: After another tough result at a major championship, 32-year-old sprinter Yohan Blake didn’t make himself available for an interview after failing to advance out of a semifinal heat in the men’s 100m on day two of the 2022 World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field on Saturday.

“Not in the mood,” Blake told Loop News in the mixed zone. When pressed further, the 2011 world champion, who won silver at the 2012 Olympics, said he would make himself available after a change of clothes before walking into the post-event control room.

He was noticed speaking to himself and shaking his head while looking at a monitor inside the post-evet control room before making his exit.

Blake finished his semifinal race in fourth place in a time of 10.12 seconds, 23 days after he turned back the clock at the Jamaica trials to win the 100m in 9.85 seconds, his best time since 2012, when he beat Usain Boltat the Olympic Trials, took second to Bolt at the Olympics and became the second-fastest man in history at age 22.

His time of 10.12 seconds was the ninth fastest in a field of 23 competitors, meaning that he just failed to secure the eighth and final spot for the medal round.

It was the second straight time that Blake failed to click in a global championship. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which was staged in 2021, Blake also failed to qualify for the final after clocking 10.14 seconds to finish sixth in a semifinal heat.

Yohan Blake’s countryman, the promising 20-year-old Ackeem Blake is also out after finishing fourth behind inform USA sprinter Fred Kerley in the second semi-final heat.

Kerley, who ran a sensational heat-winning 9.79 seconds in round one on Friday, came through the semifinal with ease in 10.02 seconds. Ackeem Blake clocked 10.19 seconds.

Oblique Seville will be the lone Jamaica in the final, which is scheduled for later tonight. Seville won his semifinal race in 9.90, the quickest time going into the final at 9:50 pm Jamaica time.

Kerley led a quartet of US sprinters into the final. Marvin Bracy (9.93), Trayvon Bromell (9.97), and defending champion Christian Coleman (10.05).

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