We had previously left France’s Wilhem Belocian at the French junior and youth championships in Val de Reuil, when he ran a World junior indoor 60m hurdles record of 7.48.
“I didn’t expect to break the World record. In fact, I didn’t know there were World indoor junior records. It’s a great day for me.”
Now he is back to competing in the 110m hurdles and he has gotten off to a strong start to the outdoor season at the CARIFTA Games held in the French overseas island of Martinique.
His win in a time of 13.23 over the junior barriers was just 0.05 away from his own European junior record of 13.18 from the European Athletics Junior Championships in Rieti last year.
'I got a bad start and made some mistakes over the barriers, but I am better than I was at the same time last year,' the IAAF reports.
Though it’s still a bit too soon for him to compete at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich this summer, his main goal this year will be the IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, USA.
“The World Junior is my main objective of the summer and this time I am targeting gold,” he continued.
In the previous edition of the championships in Barcelona, Belocian claimed bronze though he was only 16 years old and still competing as a youth.
A year on from Rieti, and with the early season promise he has already demonstrated, the Frenchman can expect to further improve his personal best and approach if not surpass the World junior record set by Wayne Davis II with 13.08.
And Belocian fully believes he has what it takes to do so:
“I have already discussed with my coach breaking the 13-second barrier.
'My trailing leg needs to come through more quickly. I need to work on my speed more and improve my start.”
The fact that Belocian is aware of the areas he still needs to improve shows what a mature runner he is for his age.
It seems that there are no limits for this young man and it isn’t long before he will begin to challenge the world’s best at the senior stage.