An­dre Bap­tise

Nine­teen year old Machel Ce­de­nio showed the World, that he is a star for the fu­ture, with a gut­sy per­for­mance in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances in the men's 400 me­tres fi­nals on Day 5 of the World Cham­pi­onships in Bei­jing, Chi­na.

Not many at the start of the year would have giv­en Ce­de­nio a chance to reach the semi­fi­nal of the World event, least of all reach the fi­nal.

Ce­de­nio had ear­li­er said, he was look­ing for­ward to en­joy­ing the mo­ment of be­ing in his first World se­nior fi­nals, as the youngest ath­lete and he was cor­rect. "I am the youngest so I am go­ing out there to en­joy my­self and en­joy the oc­ca­sion."

In one of the fastest fi­nals in some time, Ce­de­nio fin­ished sev­enth in a time of 45.06 sec­onds, be­hind the first three men, who all fin­ished un­der 44 sec­onds, led by the win­ner Wayde Van Niek­erk of South Africa (43.48), Amer­i­can La Shawn Mer­ritt (43.65) and Grena­da's Ki­rani James (43.78).

Ce­de­nio qual­i­fied as the sec­ond fastest los­er and was as­signed the dread­ed lane 2, and was al­ways at a dis­ad­van­tage, and giv­en his per­son­al best was 44.36 , it was al­ways re­al­is­ti­cal­ly go­ing to be dif­fi­cult for the young­ster to match up to these ex­pe­ri­enced ath­letes, when their times were un­der 44.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Ad­min­stra­tion for Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NAAA), Ephraim Ser­rette, speak­ing af­ter the event said, "We are proud of him, he came and gave his best. It was al­ways go­ing to be dif­fi­cult be­cause of his plac­ing. It was a dif­fi­cult draw for him on the in­side but he fought and will be bet­ter for the ex­pe­ri­ence.

"At the age of 19 to make a world fi­nal, we need to ap­pre­ci­ate that. He is the sev­enth best in the world to­day. There are over 200 coun­tries par­tic­i­pat­ing here, most of the ath­letes in this event and oth­ers say , it some­times take 2 or 3 World Cham­pi­onships for them to get bet­ter so all we need is for Ce­de­nio and his team to har­ness prop­er­ly the knowl­edge learnt from this event. We, the NAAA, are to­tal­ly be­hind and in sup­port of him."

Next up for Ce­de­nio, will be the 4x400 me­tres re­lay al­though he may be rest­ed for the first round heat on Sun­day.

Mikel Thomas crashed out of the Men's 110m hur­dles event, falling af­ter trip­ping over the first hur­dle.

"I got to the first hur­dle, I can't say what hap­pened, all I re­mem­ber is hit­ting the floor, when I looked up I was on the floor, so I had to fin­ish, I owe it my­self and God," a pos­i­tive Thomas said.

Thomas picked him­self up and to the amaze­ment of the crowd got up and cleared every hur­dle eas­i­ly and then crossed the line mak­ing the sign of cross.

"I did not come here for a va­ca­tion but in­stead to do my very best in hopes of mak­ing the fi­nale and mak­ing the podi­um, I had to fin­ish, I had to fin­ish!" said Thomas.

T&T start­ed Day 5, with three ath­letes, Ka­maria Du­rant, Se­moy Hack­ett and Re­yare Thomas - in the heats of the women's 200m but at the end, on­ly two ad­vanced to this morn­ing's semi­fi­nals (7.35am TT time).

Hack­ett fin­ished sec­ond in her heat in a time of 22.89 and qual­i­fied over­all in po­si­tion 11, while Thomas was third in her heat in a time of 23.09 and over­all in 21st po­si­tion to both progress to the semi­fi­nal. Du­rant was sixth in her heat in a time of 23.25 and over­all 30th to fin­ish out­side the 24 in the three semi­fi­nals of eight.

Hack­ett said, "I try to run as com­fort­able as ever just to make it next round. My agent said just try to ex­e­cute but en­sure I progress, I feel tired but ok though just need to re­cov­er for to­mor­row.

"My race plan was good, the 100 helped with my turnover. I feel I do not have to force it like how I did in pre­vi­ous 200, and it worked out quite fine , so i just need to go and re­cov­er so i can re­peat this to­mor­row."

Hack­ett , who is mak­ing a re­turn to the track af­ter an ab­sent of over 18 months , said it was pleas­ing to have her team­mates with her be­fore the race. "While warm­ing up iIfelt good, see­ing three of us were there, we were layed back , re­lax , get­ting ready to com­pete to­geth­er but it was more com­fort­ing know­ing that your team­mates were there with you ,"not­ed Hack­ett

Hack­ett wants to reach the podi­um on Fri­day in the fi­nal and has a plan say­ing," I plan to make it to the fi­nal and hope­ful­ly do a pr (per­son­al record), 22.3 or bet­ter will medal so that is my aim. I pre­fer an out­er lane so I will not have to work hard to catch peo­ple. I will just ex­e­cute bet­ter and be more re­laxed com­ing home."

Thomas will race in semi­fi­nal heat one, from Lane 2 at 7.35 am with Elaine Thomp­son of Ja­maica al­so in that race while Hack­ett will race in se­mi nal heat two, from Lane 4, with Sherone Simp­son of Ja­maica among her chal­lengers.