The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Over the past few years, Swift Athletics’ coach Andrew Tynes has been grooming sprinter Carlos Brown Jr for his major breakthrough. He’s hoping that this will be the year for him to shine.

Brown Jr opened his season on Saturday with an impressive 10.19 seconds wind-aided win at the Red-Line Athletics’ 2023 Oaktree Medical Center Sonja Knowles Track Classic at the Thomas A Robinson Track and Field Stadium.

The 17-year-old Brown Jr said he’s pleased with his performance, which indicates that he’s right on track to surpassing the qualifying standard of 10.60.

“I felt really good going into the race, but I felt my hamstring going into the latter part of the race so I just wanted to finish strong,” Brown Jr said. “I felt good about the time. I felt I could have gone even faster if I didn’t tweak my hamstring.”

With a little bit of therapy, Brown Jr said he hopes to be ready for the CARIFTA Games, scheduled for April 7-11 at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium. He said he has something in store for the track world. “I want to get to the level where I suppose to be,” he charged. “I want to run a really fast time and shock the world.”

In preparation for the road ahead of him, Brown Jr said he has devoted himself to the training from coach Tynes. “In order to stay on top, you have to work hard at it,” Brown said. “The competition is there for me, so I have to stay competitive to be on top. I’m not looking forward to any specific time, but I just want to run as fast as I could and with the competition, I know I can do it.”

Brown is looking forward to his first individual medal at CARIFTA, although he picked up a silver in the 4 x 100m relay at last year’s games in Kingston, Jamaica. With the games coming back to the Bahamas, he would like nothing better than to accomplish the feat in front of the home crowd.

“Coach has been preparing me with a lot of speed work and strength,” Brown Jr said. “So I really want to thank him for all that he’s been pouring into me.”

Tynes, a former CARIFTA standout who went on to become an Olympic sprinter, said he’s been carefully preparing Brown Jr for the journey to his path of greatness, starting like he did at the CARIFTA Games.

“With him being so young, I decided that I would not push him too quickly,” Tynes said. “He had a few injuries here and there, so I didn’t want to burn him out. I rested him a little bit in 2022 because I know this year will be a phenomenal year for him.

“So after last season, I knew he will do very well this year. I expect for him to run under 10 seconds once he gets healthy again.”

Tynes said the goal for Brown, a 12th grade student at CR Walker Secondary High, is to medal here at CARIFTA before he heads off to the Junior Pan American Championships, scheduled for April 10-18, with hopes for another medal.

If he qualifies for the World Championships, it would be gravy on his plate. “He’s the best sprinter in my camp right now, so he knows that there is a lot of expectations for him,” Mackey said. “But we have some other sprinters right behind him like Ishmael Rolle, who is also expected to be on this year’s CARIFTA team, and hopefully win a medal.”

At present, Tynes feels he is the “sprint capital” of the Bahamas and Brown Jr will lead the way for th