Trinidad and Tobago athletes miss Olympic qualification in Texas meet

TT ATHLETES continued to vie for Olympic qualification with the track and field trio of Sparkle McKnight, Asa Guevara and Taejha Badal competing at the USA Track and Field Open in Ft Worth, Texas, on Tuesday.

In the men’s 400-metre timed finals, Guevara was tenth overall in 47.07 seconds, even though he was third in heat two. American Micheal Cherry, winner of heat three, was first overall in 44.37. The Olympic qualification standard for the men’s 400m event is 44.90.

In the women’s 400m hurdles, McKnight was sixth overall after placing fifth and last in the second of two heats. McKnight clocked 57.73 which was not enough to achieve the Olympic standard of 55.40.

Gianna Woodruff of Panama won heat two in 55.37 which was also fast enough to take gold.

In the women’s 100m timed finals, Badal was sixth and last in heat one in 12.05. She finished 19th in the field of 19 participants.

Badal was eighth overall in the women’s 200m timed final after finishing second in the first of two heats in 24.21. Badal needed to clock 11.15 to qualify for the Olympics in the 100m and 22.80 in the 200m.

The deadline to qualify for most track and field events is the end of June.