DON'T expect Bermuda's fastest human Xavier James to bring home medals if he continues to be denied proper support from his country.

That's the view of former United States Olympian Dennis Mitchell who coached the Southampton resident for a few months in Florida in his build-up to the Greece Games.

Although James failed to accomplish his goal of advancing to the quarter-finals he did manage to set a Bermuda Olympic record of 10.40 in the 100 metres, eclipsing the old mark of 10.63 set by Dennis Trott at the Montreal Games in 1976.

While it is the goal of every competitor to return home with medals, James was pleased with his performance while his coach was ecstatic considering the fact that the athlete had rather piece-meal preparation and was lacking the pre-race conditioning that other sprinters in Greece obviously benefited from.

But Mitchell, once rated as one of the world's fastest men and who represented his country in the 100 metres in Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta, made a plea for Bermuda to get on board and back James.

The coach says that he is looking ahead to the future and believes that he can help James reach greater heights ? but it was imperative that the athlete based himself in Florida.

"For the next three years this guy has to bring home some medals for Bermuda, but first the country has to make a real effort to support him," said Mitchell. "I would like to see Bermuda come together and put some effort into supporting his training for the next four years so that we can sit down and focus on things so that he can reach some finals of major events."

James and Mitchell worked relentlessly in Florida from April to the end of July, but it became clear that there wasn't too much the coach could to in such a short time.

According to Mitchell they just tried to build on his strong points without making any real adjustments which could have complicated things with the time restraints, but given ample time in the future he reckoned that he could help the runner improve in many areas and thus become a more proficient athlete.

"That was a big issue of us not having enough time to spend together so that he could consistently run faster times on the track. In practice, because we did do things over and over again, he has a great sense of speed, he improved his technique tremendously and he was running times in practice that should have allowed him to run somewhere around 10.1 or 10.2 low when he got to the Games," said the coach.

"But lots of things when you get to the Games comes into play, you know such as walking around the Village, riding the buses etc., a lot of energy expenditures, so he had a lot of things working against him."

Mitchell was pleased that James set a new Bermuda record, which gave the athlete renewed encouragement to persevere and look ahead with optimism.

As a teacher at Gilbert Institute, James and Bermuda have to make some tough decisions ? mainly that if he and the island wants the runner to have some success on the world stage then his running has to be taken more seriously. Everything has to be taken to the next level and for this reason the coach felt that Bermuda should rally to support James.

"As a coach my ideal situation would be to see Xavier here in Florida and train with me throughout an entire period of the year, from the fall all the way to the Spring," said Mitchell, 1992 Olympic bronze medallist in the 100 metres.

"There were things wrong with his technique and strength levels that I wasn't able to fix because it takes more time than just a few months to do and if he is able to come here and spend this time with me then I know we will see great improvement," he said.

"I have had a few words with him since the Games, but we still have to talk and discuss things in more detail. I am looking to have the chance to work with him from, say October of this year to next August, and we should accomplish a lot."

Mitchell said that all of Bermuda should be proud of their runner, even though he didn't advance to the quarter-finals. Nobody should be disappointed.

"Am I disappointed, you got to be kidding," said Mitchell. "Xavier has had a great year. He has averaged around 10.4, he ran 10.38 which is a hundred of a second off his pr and we only had six to eight weeks of work together. So to average 10.4, which I don't think he has done in the past, it's tremendous for him and it gives us great promise for what we can achieve in the future.

"I really want to put it out to Bermuda to support this man, put some effort into aiding his training issues and help us reach goals that he is capable of reaching."