Tre Houston will have to adopt the mindset of a hunter and ruthlessly chase down the pack if he is to achieve his 200 metres semi-final objective.

That is the view of Troy Douglas, the Bermuda head coach, who knows all about the treacherous and unforgiving route to the Olympics semis, having reached that stage in the 200 and 400 at Atlanta in 1996, and in the 400 at Barcelona in 1992.

Douglas, who also represented Bermuda at Seoul in 1988 and Holland at Athens in 2004, believes Houston must develop a nasty streak with a view to eliminating his weakest rivals.

“I know what the semi-finals are all about,” Douglas said, “I’ve been in my fair share of them.

“You have to become a keen observer, almost like a hunter. You’re hunting down the weakest guys in the pack.

“You have to eliminate them and figure out who are the strongest guys. You have to work out a way to live to fight another day.

“This is basically what Tre is learning and it’s beautiful to see and experience with him.”

Houston has his sights set on the semis and Douglas believes that is a realistic goal for the island’s first Olympic sprinter since Xavier James at Athens.

“There’s nothing bad about coming away as one of the top 16 in the world,” he said.

“I think about half of the guys in the field have about the same personal best as Tre [20.42].”

DeVon Bean, who is Bermuda’s athletics coach in Rio, knows more than most what makes Houston tick having worked with the 26-year-old for several years.

There will be three rounds of competition in the 200: the heats, semi-finals and finals, and Bean admits Houston has to treat this morning’s race as if it is his last.

“Tre needs to run his heat like it’s a final,” Bean said.

“His time is respectable but in order to progress to the semis he needs to be running on another planet, which is he is capable of doing.”

Traditionally Bermuda has been thought of as an island that produces middle-distance runners, although Bean points out that it has been the “power athletes” who have reached the Olympics over the past 12 years.

In 2004 James, a 100 sprinter, was Bermuda’s sole representative, while Tyrone Smith and Arantxa King were the island’s only competitors in athletics at Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012.

“A lot of people ask, ‘Where’s Bermuda’s sprinters?’.” Bean said.

“But if you look at the last 20 years it’s been sprinters or jumpers, the power athletes, who have represented Bermuda at the Olympics.

“We might struggle a bit at the junior level, the Carifta level, but we always seem to have sprinters and jumpers qualify at the high level.

“Maybe we need to work at our junior programme a little bit more, although we do have to compete in a very competitive region, as the Caribbean rules sprinting globally.”