RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil:

Medical exemptions.

It became a key point of discussion during Jamaica's Olympic trials in Kingston a month ago and has followed the contingent to the Brazilian city, with the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association's (JAAA) management team here faced with a few tough decisions.

Decisions that athletics team manager Ludlow Watts says will not be made before August 8 at 11 a.m. (9 a.m. Jamaica time).

Watts told The Gleaner yesterday that the athletes with question marks over their heads will be given a series of tests by the medical team here to confirm their physical health while the panel of coaches assigned to the team will then examine their conditioning on the track before a final determination is made.

So how did we get here?

As allowed under JAAA's selection policy, top-ranked athletes Usain Bolt, Janieve Russell, Elaine Thompson, and Hansle Parchment were all given medical exemptions at some point during the trials after suffering injuries. The JAAA, at the time, indicated that the athletes had to prove their fitness before the ongoing training camp here - with Russell and Bolt expected to do so at the July 22-23 London Diamond League.Read More