West, relay teams seek final spot at World U-20 Athletic Championships

Cheyne West will be vying for a spot in the men’s 400 metres hurdles final at the World Under-20 Track and Field Championships which got underway at the Estadio Atletico de la Videna in Lima, Peru on Tuesday.

West is set to contest the men’s 400m hurdles semifinal round Firiday. He will line up in lane three of the third heat at 5.23 pm. The Abilene Wildcats hurdler will be aiming to finish in the top two spots in his race to advance to tomorrow’s medal race.

The 2023 North American, Central American and Caribbean (NACAC) Boys U-18 400m hurdles silver medallist qualified for the semifinals after he was fourth in his first-round heat on Wednesday in a personal best time of 52.18 seconds. The 2024 English Secondary Schools Championships Boys U-20 one-lap hurdles runner-up will be aiming to join Janae De Gannes as finalists at this year’s World U-20 Champs. De Gannes was eighth in the women’s long jump final on Wednesday with a distance of 6.09m.

West will also be seeking to emulate the feat of Jehue Gordon who reached the final in 400m hurdles in 2010 in Moncton, Canada. Gordon went on to win the gold in 49.30 seconds.

The national relay teams are also scheduled to be in action Friday.

The men’s 4x400m relay squad will seek to get through the heats from 1 pm. The final four runners will be selected from among Kyrel Thomas, Jaden Clement, Dorian Charles, Joshua Perry and Daeshaun Cole.

From 1.35 pm the women’s 4x100m preliminaries are up next. The line-up will be chosen from De Gannes, Jenna-Marie Thomas, Kenniyah Guischard-Yearwood, Alexxe Henry and Akira Malaver.

The men’s 4x100m team will take the track from 2.05 pm for the first round with Che Wickham, Kadeem Chinapoo, Trevaughn Stewart, Hakeem Chinapoo, and Dylan Woodruffe all in contention to run.

Clement reached the semifinal round of the men’s 400m on Wednesday. However, he did not finish his race. (K) Thomas (Cougars) bowed out in the first round of the men’s 400m and finished 44th fastest (48.02) while Charles and (J) Thomas also did not advance from the preliminary round of the men’s and women’s 400m hurdles, respectively.

Charles was 36th best (53.65) while (J) Thomas finished 42nd fastest (1:01.91). Wickham also finished down the field in the men’s 100m preliminaries in 60th (10.96) and Le Bron James did not advance from the men’s javelin qualifying stage. He was 25th (62.67).

With one day to go at the global biennial meet, T&T athletes are yet to win a medal. Local competitors last finished on the podium at the 2016 edition in Bydgoszcz, Poland when Khalifa St Fort earned bronze in the women’s 100m final.

T&T is represented by 17 athletes.

Since the inception of the World U-20 Championships in 1986 local athletes won 17 medals (8 gold, 2 silver, 7 bronze).

Ato Boldon (Men’s 100m/200m-1992), Darryl Brown (Men’s 100m-2002), Renny Quow (Men’s 400m-2006), Dr Rhonda Watkins (Women’s long jump-2006), Jehue Gordon (Men’s 400m hurdles-2010), Keshorrn Walcott (Men’s javelin-2012) and Machel Cedenio (Men’s 400m-2014) were this country’s gold medallists.

Marc Burns (Men’s 100m-2002) and Janiel Bellille (Women’s 400m hurdles-2008) copped silver while Burns (Men’s 100m-2000), Fana Ashby (Women’s 100m-2000) and Jamil James (Men’s 200m-2004) secured bronze along with the Men’s 4x100m (2002 & 2010) and the Men’s 4x400m (2012) relay teams.

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