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Zharnel Hughes is in the running for the ‘biggest event’ at London 2017 World Athletics Championships

Zharnel Hughes: Patrick Smith/Getty Images for IAAF
Zharnel Hughes: Patrick Smith/Getty Images for IAAF

When it comes to the Rio Olympics and what might have been, Zharnel Hughes is surprisingly sanguine.

Today marks 100 days to go until London 2017 and that sporting carrot dangled in front of him has aided him in the agony of missing Brazil with a knee ligament problem.

It was July last year just a few days shy of his 21st birthday that Hughes was finally forced to give up the ghost of Rio and draw a premature close to his season. “Missing out on the Olympics was devastating,” he said.

“And sure 2016 didn’t go as I wanted it to go as I knew I was in great shape but that’s just track and field sometimes.”

London 2017 and the next Olympics in Tokyo in three years’ time are both repeatedly on the lips of Usain Bolt’s occasional training partner.

Having finished fifth in the 200metres at his World Championship debut in 2015 in Beijing and Bolt having made it clear he will opt out of the event in London this summer, Hughes’ ambitions are high but realistic.

“I want to be on that podium,” he said. As for winning gold, he added: “I think maybe it’s too soon to aim for that. We’ll see in Tokyo.”

An athlete likened to Bolt with a stride as long and languid as that of the world’s fastest man, it was always the Jamaican that he and his mother cheered when he competed while Hughes’ sprint career was in the junior ranks.

But the Bolt love affair has since diminished back in his native Anguilla. “We watched the 200m final and obviously we were cheering the Jamaicans but now my mother was cheering Adam Gemili. I’ve not told Adam that!”

Such a stance is understandable: Gemili and Hughes are the current front-runners in the battle to be Britain’s No1 over 200m but face competition from Miguel Francis, who recently switched allegiance from Antigua to Great Britain, as well as Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Danny Talbot.

“The British sprinters are on the rise and ready to make some noise,” said Hughes. “It’s [the 200m] got the potential to be the biggest event at London 2017 for Britain — just getting in the team is a big deal.

“I need to qualify first so I don’t want to talk too much about it. Sure, I want to compete at London 2017 in front of my home crowd and it’s been a big thing to aim for since Rio but I have to get in the team and be fit and healthy first.”

Hughes’ form is good. Already this year, he has broken his 400m personal best in a one-off outing as well as edging towards sub-10 seconds for the 100m. But the 200m remains the leading goal for him, many at the Racers’ Track Club in Jamaica which spawned Bolt see him as a natural successor over the distance.

He returned to a Great Britain jersey at the weekend in the IAAF World Relays only for the team to be disqualified for a baton handover blunder.

The 4x100m quartet raced with black ribbons on in memory of Germaine Mason, the Jamaica-born British Olympic high jump silver medallist who died last week after a motorcycle crash.

“I didn’t know him that much but I’d heard great things about him,” added Hughes.

“I saw him come to the track a couple of times with Bolt and he was a cool person and very humble.

“When I got the message in the Bahamas and told the other guys it was a big shock, particularly for Harry [Aikines-Aryeetey] as he’d only spoken to Germaine a few days earlier. I know everyone felt it.”

But running in Mason’s name was a bond that brought the team together and Hughes is confident a medal is on the horizon for the team in London.

“If we can get our changes smooth then why not take it to the rest of the world,” he said, a sentiment to match his individual ambitions in the capital.

London 2017 is the first time the IAAF World Championships and the World Para Athletics Championships are being held in the same city. It is 100 days until the start of the athletics championships, which runs from August 4-13. It is preceded by the para athletics event, which runs from July 14-23. Tickets are available from: tickets.london2017athletics.com