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From:TheBahamasWeekly.com Sports
Today was the eleventh anniversary of Avard Moncur’s 400m victory at the IAAF World Championships in Edmonton. The USA made history also with nobody in the final, the first time ever in the history of the Games. When it was all over Kirani James from Grenada, who had won the World Youth Championships, the World Junior Championships, and last year’s IAAF World Championships, made history in becoming the very first athlete to win an Olympic medal for Grenada. The clock stopped at 43.94sec, which is the fastest time ever done by an athlete from the Central American and Caribbean region. Cuban Roberto Hernandez ran 44.14sec in Seville, Spain in 1990. James’ time is the ninth best performance of all time in the event. His previous best was 44.36sec. The Dominican Republic’s Luguelin Santos won the Silver medal in 44.46sec, a hundredth of a second above his best. He is the World Junior Champion from Barcelona this July. Trinidad & Tobago’s Lalonde Gordon came from out of nowhere to capture the Bronze medal. He came into the Games with a clocking of forty-five seconds plus and dropped his Personal Best in the Semi-Final to 44.58sec. In the final he dropped it further to 44.52sec. Brown, who had a clocking of 44.67sec in the Semi-Final of 44.67sec dropped to fourth, the same as he finished in Beijing, but with a faster time, 44.79sec. The Borlee’ twins from Belgium finished fifth(Kevin-44.81sec), and sixth (Jonathan-44.83sec). Our own Demetrius Pinder finished in seventh place in 44.98sec. This was his first outing at the Games. Eighth place went to Steven Solomon of Australia, who was the Silver medalist in Barcelona to Santos. Solomon ran 45.14sec. More Opportunities The 400m is finished. The Bahamas has won medals in Track and Field in every Games since 1992. Today Anthonique Strachan finished second in the Women’s 200m heats in 22.75sec, behind Jamaica’s Shelly Ann Fraser-Price, the Olympic 100m champion. That advances her to the Semi-Final. It is our belief that Strachan has what it takes to make the final of this talent laden event. Tomorrow morning the competition starts in the Triple Jump, where Leevan Sands captured the Bronze medal in Beijing. Sands will have to do another National record to win a medal but we believe he has it in him. Then there is the Men’s 4x400m relay. The Bahamian team of Andretti Bain, Andrae Williams, Michael Mathieu, and Chris Brown won the Silver medal in Beijing. Ramon Miller ran in the semi-final round. This year The Bahamas is ranked at fourth place in this event this year with their outstanding performance at the Penn Relays this April. The Bahamas has the fourth best time of 2:57.32 done in their Silver medal in Helsinki in 2005, with Nathaniel McKinney, Avard Moncur, Andrae Williams, and Chris Brown.Troy McIntosh ran in the semi-final. This is not intended to place any additional pressure on anybody but just to let you know of our additional opportunities. The only reason for us to think about the 400m is to learn from it!
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