TT's final chance to medal as...Keshorn, men's 4x400 in finals at Worlds

KESHORN Walcott and the men's 4x400m relay team are TT's final hope of earning a medal at the 2019 IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) World Championships in Doha, Qatar, tomorrow.

Today in the men's javelin qualification, Walcott earned a place in the final after landing the spear 84.44m on his first attempt to earn the automatic qualification standard of 84.00m. To qualify for the final athletes needed to throw 84.00m or finish among the top 12.

Walcott finished third in group B. Finishing on top of group B was Magnus Kirt of Estonia with an effort of 88.36m, followed by Kim Amb of Sweden with an 84.85m performance.

Also progressing to the final from group B were Chao-Tsun Cheng of Chinese Taipei (83.40m) and Lassi Etelatalo of Finland (82.26m), who finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Seven participants qualified from group A with German Johannes Vetter comfortably winning with a huge effort of 89.35m. The other competitors booking a place in the finals were Grenadian Anderson Peters (85.34m), Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic (84.31m), German Julian Weber (84.29m), Kenyan Julius Yego (83.86m), Norbert Rivasz-Toth of Hungary (83.42m) and Marcin Krukowski of Poland (82.44m).

The final will take place at 12.55 pm TT time, tomorrow.

In the men's 4x400m relay heats, the quartet of Asa Guevara, Jereem Richards, Darren Alfred and Deon Lendore booked a spot in the final after clocking three minutes, 01.35 seconds (3:01.35) to finish third in heat two. Jamaica won in 3:00.76, Belgium ended second in 3:00.87 and France took the fourth and final qualification spot in 3:01.40.

Four teams also qualified from heat one with the Americans winning in 2:59.89, Colombia ending second in 3:01.06, Italy grabbing third spot in 3:01.60 and Great Britain and Northern Ireland rounding off the top four in 3:01.96. The top three in each heat and the next two fastest times qualified for tomorrow's final at 2.30 pm.

In the women's 4x100m final, the TT team of Semoy Hackett, Kelly-Ann Baptiste, Mauricia Prieto and Kamaria Durant could not deliver this country's first medal at the championships, finishing sixth in 42.71. Jamaica copped gold in 41.44, Great Britain and Northern Ireland were second in 41.85 and USA took bronze in 42.10.