TT U-20 relay men seventh in IAAF Championships

TT’s quartet of Kion Benjamin, Carlon Hosten, Timothy Frederick and Tyrell Edwards finished seventh yesterday in the men’s 4x100m at the IAAF World Under-20 Championships, in Tampere, Finland.

The six-day event, which concludes today, sees TT finish without winning a medal.

Quickest off the tracks with a reaction time of 0.138 seconds, the team clocked 39.87 seconds at the finish line in an anticlimactic finish for the team, which advanced to the final as fourth fastest qualifiers on Friday, posting 39.67 seconds.

The United States won the race in a world leading (U-20) time of 38.88 seconds. Jamaica followed up for silver with a national U-20 4x100m record of 38.96 seconds.

Germany, which posted the fastest qualifying time, placed third in 39.22 seconds. Japan (39.23), Czech Republic (39.75) and Spain (39.86), all finished above TT. Italy, which suffered a mix-up at the first handover, did not finish the race.

The Championships end today with the men and women’s 4x400m relays, neither of which TT qualified for ahead of the event.

In total, 11 athletes represented TT. Earlier at the Championships, Jenea Spinks and Akilah Lewis both ran in the 100m preliminaries and qualified for the semifinal, but were unable to secure spots for the final. Both posted slightly slower times in their second race than the first.

In the women’s 200m, Iantha Wright scraped into the semifinal after finishing 22nd overall in the preliminaries with a time of 24.41 seconds. She then clocked 24.16 in the semifinal, which was well short of the eight qualifying finalists.

Senior national 400m silver medallist Rae-ann Serville was unable to finish the preliminary quarter-mile event.

In the women’s javelin, Talena Murray threw 48.36m in the preliminary round, which the 17th best overall and not good enough to see her into the next round.

Ianna Roach challenged the women’s shot put but was unable to post a score as none of her three attempts were legal.

Among the men, neither Edwards nor Fredericks posted qualifying times for the 100m semifinals.

Fredericks did manage to advance from the 200m first round heats to the semifinal unlike Ako Hislop, who placed seventh in his heat and 32nd overall.

However, Frederick stopped there as he clocked 21.48 seconds in his semifinal heat, considerably off his 24.16 seconds in the preliminaries.

Meanwhile, Onal Mitchell, TT’s only representative in the 400m, placed sixth out of seven runners in the preliminary stage, clocking 47.77 seconds. The final of that event was won by Belgian Jonathan Sacoor, who set a new record for his country in 45.03 seconds.