Maurice Wilson, coach and lecturer at the G.C. Foster College for Physical Education, will be Jamaica’s track and field technical leader at this summer’s Olympic Games.
Wilson has served in the head track and field coaching position at the 2012 Olympic Games and the World Championships in 2011 and 2015. The appointment was communicated during a recent interview with local athletics chief, Dr Warren Blake, the president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association.
Wilson has helped Holmwood Technical High School to win 10 Girls’ Championships titles and has been involved in the development of Olympians, including Chris Williams, the 2001 World Championships 200m silver medal winner, 2005 National 400m champion Lansford Spence, 2008 Olympic 400m finalist Rosemarie Whyte, and schoolgirl Olympic relay medallist, Bobbi-Gaye Wilkins.
In 2012, he coached Janieve Russell to the 2012 World Junior gold medal in the 400-metre hurdles, and the following year, he guided Yanique Thompson to victory in the 100-metre hurdles at the World Youth Championships.
He had another major success when Rasheed Dwyer won the 2011 World Student Games and the 2014 Commonwealth Games 200-metre gold medals and silver in the 2015 Pan-Am Games. Dwyer ran 19.80 seconds in the semi-finals at those Games to break a meet record set in 1971 by Jamaican legend Don Quarrie.
This year, Wilson’s G.C. Foster teams won the men’s and women’s team titles at the Jamaican Intercollegiate Championships. G.C. Foster College went on to win their first Penn Relays Championships, with a solid win in the College men 4×100 metres.
The other Olympic team coaches will be named after this week’s National Senior Championships.
“The staff usually gets finalised after the Trials because we try to name the coaches who have athletes on the team,” explained Blake.