JONES Jonathan

General
LOST PERSONAL BEST
At the 2019 Diamond League meet in Monaco, he set a 400m personal best of 44.64s only to realise at the finish line that a false start had been called. He did not receive an official time and chose not to run the restarted race. "I was just surprised and confused. The guy on my outside ran 300 metres with me, so I assumed the race was on, and the guy on my inside ran the first 100 metres, so I heard his footsteps and I assumed I just pulled away from him really fast. It might sound strange, but Monaco, running by myself, was the biggest highlight of the year. I was mentally active the entire race, going through my race plan the whole time and executing exactly how I envisioned it." Later the same month, he set a 400m personal best of 44.63s at the Diamond League meet in London, England. (hookem.com, 14 Aug 2019; runnersworld.com, 16 Jul 2019; worldathletics.org, 21 Jul 2019)

EARLY DAYS
When he was selected for his first Barbadian national team in 2014, in the U20 category, he turned down the chance to compete. "You can either qualify by making a standard or you can be selected. My mindset in 2014 was if I don't make the team, I won't be mad, and I'll just try again next year. I nearly made the team, I was off by like two seconds. They said, 'You know what, you showed progress, we're going to take you'. I told them, 'No'. I declined because I didn't think that I was good enough. I wanted to make it because I made it, not because someone said we'll take you just because." (Big 12 Conference YouTube channel, 27 Feb 2020)