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Julian Robinson is arguably the best throwing coach locally or in the Caribbean with none other able to match his remarkable coaching record at his alma mater, Calabar, where he continues to churn out top throwers for both the school and the national programmes.

Robinson's throwers have created records for the country both at the senior and junior levels, with Chad Wright, Traves Smikle, Fedrick Dacres and Kai Chang all winning significant medals in the discus. Dacres is the most successful as he won World Championships silver in Doha in 2019 after copping the Commonwealth Games gold in the Gold Coast, a year before.

At the junior level, Dacres also created history by winning gold in the 2011 World Youth Championships in Lille, France, and one year later, he stepped up to win gold at the Barcelona World Under-20 Championships.

Robinson showed his coaching pedigree once again at last summer's World Under-20 Championships in Cali, Colombia, as his protege, Kobe Lawrence, won Jamaica's first medal at the world level in shot put, after finishing second for silver.

Recently at the PureWater/JC/R Danny Williams meet, Lawrence led Robinson's throwers in their good start to the season, as he won the Class 1 boys' discus and shot put events with record-breaking performances.

In a recent interview with STAR Sports at his training base on Red Hills Road, Robinson was pleased with the progress of Lawrence.

"An excellent start for Kobe and I am grateful for the other guys who are improving. We have a young set of guys and I am happy with the progress and this augurs well for the remainder of the season," Robinson said.

"What Kobe did in Cali was something very special as all of the medals gained over the years at the international level by my athletes have come in discus, and seeing Kobe breaking this barrier is indeed special. Also, what made it more special was that he had challenges going into that Championships because I had to stop him from training for a few weeks due to an elbow injury.

"Many people thought that it was difficult for Jamaica to have gotten a medal at this level in shot put but I was always confident that it could have been done, as like in sprinting and jumping, we have the athletes who can do so," he cited.

Robinson, who has a knack for producing top throwers, stated that Lawrence had little or no talent in this area.

"Kobe has been working with me for over four years and when he started he was not a special athlete. I wanted to tell him to stop, but another part of me told me to give him a chance and I did as I saw how dedicated he was, as I noticed whenever I corrected his mistakes, he would always make notes and this really made me more interested in helping him. He really applied himself and he is very coachable and this makes my work much easier," said Robinson.

"Kobe is a shot putter who does discus for me, and in my coaching I allow the athletes to go with what they love best as he has the aptitude for that," said Robinson.

Last year, Lawrence was offered a scholarship to attend university overseas but Robinson thinks staying back in high school an extra year was the best decision for his charge.

"Kobe has been offered several scholarships from some of the top universities in the United States and he took up the offer at the University of Oregon; however, I did not think that he was ready for that level yet and the plan for him was to stay back an extra year in high school and allow him to develop more, by getting stronger and fine-tuning his technique before going to college because the shot put is a big man thing. The coach at Oregon agreed also as they had planned to redshirt him in his first year," Robinson said.

Lawrence had two second-place finishes at last year's Champs and is the big favourite for the double this year, but Robinson dismisses suggestions that he will be going for the records at the April 5-9 event at the National Stadium.

"It is not about records for Kobe, it is about ensuring that he gets the best coaching to advance in his career, and this is the focus as I am just preparing him for college as I want him to be the best he can be," he concluded.