At the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA)/Puma National Junior & Senior Championships held at Kingston’s National Stadium on Friday, 19-year-old sprinter Gary Card delivered a career-defining performance that cemented his place among the world’s most exciting young track talents. Card clocked a blistering 9.93 seconds in the senior men’s 100m final to take second place, breaking the long-standing Jamaican junior men’s national record in the process. The breakout run also reshaped the global under-20 sprint rankings, pushing Card into the exclusive ranks of history’s fastest junior sprinters.
Finishing just behind race winner Oblique Seville, who ran a world-leading 9.82 seconds this season, Card’s new time sliced 0.10 seconds off his own personal best of 10.03 seconds, set at the prestigious Penn Relays back in April. The previous Jamaican junior record of 9.99 seconds, set by Bouwahjgie Nkrumie in 2023, now falls to Card, who also sits atop 2024’s World Under-20 100m rankings. He outpaces Australia’s Gout Gout and Nigeria’s John Caleb, both of whom have clocked 10.00 seconds this season, to claim the number one spot.
In the all-time global under-20 100m rankings, Card now shares third place with American sprinter Christian Miller, running just fractions behind the top two: Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, who set the current world junior record of 9.91 seconds in 2022, and American Maurice Gleaton, who ran 9.92 seconds earlier this year. The teen sprinter credits his consistent preparation and elite training environment for the breakthrough, saying his daily work had long signaled that a fast time was on the horizon.
“Based on training times and how I felt overall, I knew that I could go where I’ve never gone before — and I was excited to do so,” Card explained after the race.
This season, Card made the deliberate choice to skip the high-profile ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships to enroll at the University of Technology, Jamaica, and join the elite MVP Track and Field Club, a decision that has already paid dividends. Lining up against far more experienced senior competitors in the final did not phase the young sprinter, a reality he attributes to training alongside some of the fastest athletes on the planet. He is a regular training partner of Kishane Thompson, an Olympic and World Championships medalist widely regarded as one of the top sprinters in the world today.
“It’s not unusual to me because I train with the fastest man in the world. Every day I get beat up at training, so it just shows that it’s worth something,” Card added.
With the 2024 international athletics season now hitting its stride, Card says he is ready and willing to compete at any championship he is selected for, regardless of scheduling conflicts. Two major events on the horizon are the Commonwealth Games in Scotland and the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, though the Commonwealth Games concludes just days before the start of the World Under-20 Championships. For Card, the selection does not matter — he is focused only on putting forward his best performance wherever he gets the chance.
“I don’t have a preference. As long as I do the best I can anywhere, it’s really anything for me so I just have to run, to be honest,” Card said.