Two-sport global champion Donovan Bailey, an Olympic and World 100m gold medalist, has thrown his full weight behind rising Jamaican sprint star Kishane Thompson, declaring the young runner is poised to take over the 100m scene this season following a series of electrifying early-season performances.
Last Saturday at the Miramar Invitational held in Florida, Thompson, a 24-year-old who already holds an Olympic and World Championship silver medal in the 100m, delivered a performance that made global track headlines: he clocked 14.92 seconds over the 150m distance, breaking a 31-year-old world best mark of 14.97 seconds previously set by Jamaican-born British sprinter Linford Christie back in 1994. Remarkably, this breakthrough run marked the first 150m race of Thompson’s professional career, and his first competition over a distance longer than 100m since he ran the 200m at the 2022 Velocity Fest.
While Thompson has not yet made his 100m seasonal debut this year, he has already turned heads in the 60m circuit. Last month at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland, he ran a new personal best of 6.45 seconds to claim the silver medal, cementing his status as one of the world’s top emerging sprinters.
Bailey, a former 100m world record holder who won Olympic 100m gold for Canada at the 1996 Atlanta Games and world title in 1995, shared his glowing assessment of Thompson’s form in a recent episode of his YouTube channel, noting he has been particularly impressed by the young athlete’s performances given his larger physical frame.
“What stood out most to me about what Kishane has achieved so far is his consistency — consistent relaxation through the race, consistent exit from the drive phase, and consistent control of his body positioning,” Bailey explained. “All of those strengths were on full display in that 150m run.”
He added: “Kishane is a very big guy. When I was competing at my peak, my racing weight was 209 pounds, and he’s even bigger than I was. That makes it all the more incredible that he can generate such massive power coming off the turn and maintain that momentum all the way through the line.”
Looking back to 2025, Thompson already established himself as a top contender: he posted the fastest 100m time in the world that year, clocking 9.75 seconds to defend his Jamaican national title, and notched an impressive 10 sub-10 second runs over the course of the season. His only major setback came at the Tokyo World Championships, where he finished second in the final behind compatriot Oblique Seville.
Though 2026 is not a year for the sport’s traditional top-tier global championships, Thompson has a packed competitive schedule lined up: he is set to compete across the Diamond League circuit, with a potential spot at the July Commonwealth Games, followed by the new World Athletics Ultimate Championships in September.
Bailey argued that Thompson’s ongoing refinement of his technical skills makes him nearly unbeatable on the track this summer. “I truly believe Kishane is ready right now,” he said. “He’s put in the work on speed endurance training, which lets him stay relaxed through the 75 to 80-meter mark and let the race come to him naturally.
“Even if you have athletes like Christian Coleman or other shorter, quicker sprinters who can keep pace with him over the first 30 meters, once Kishane finds his rhythm, adjusts his form and settles into his stride, he is unmatched when it comes to top-end speed. He is going to have a fantastic summer. I love what he’s doing right now — he’s fully leaning into his speed and stepping into the role he was meant to fill in sprinting.”
Thompson’s first major test of the 2026 season will come next month at the Xiamen Diamond League in China, where he is scheduled to go head-to-head with Botswana’s Olympic 100m champion Letsile Tebogo, alongside two of America’s top sprint stars: Christian Coleman and Kenny Bednarek.