Rachael Thomp­son-King

It was a de­layed cel­e­bra­tion for the T&T men's 4x100 me­tres re­lay team, who es­caped with a bronze medal af­ter Cana­da was dis­qual­i­fied in the fi­nal event yes­ter­day in the Olympic Games in Lon­don, Eng­land. The quar­tet of Richard Thomp­son, Marc Burns, Em­manuel Cal­len­der and Ke­ston Bled­man crossed the line in fourth place in the time of 38.12 sec­onds and, for a mo­ment watched, as Ja­maica cel­e­brat­ed its gold medal, USA, the sil­ver and Cana­da, the bronze. But dis­ap­point­ment turned to ju­bi­la­tion when the re­play of the race showed the left foot of Cana­da's most vet­er­an run­ner, Jared Con­naughton, mak­ing con­tact with the in­side lane mark­ing, as he round­ed the curve be­fore hand­ing the ba­ton to an­chor man Justyn Warn­er. T&T was al­ready head­ing off the track at the Olympic Sta­di­um while the Cana­di­ans had grabbed their flags to be­gin their cel­e­bra­to­ry lap, when the mes­sage ap­peared on the score­board in­di­cat­ing that they were dis­qual­i­fied. Their joy turned to de­spair and they dropped to the track in tears. Thomp­son, who ran the an­chor leg, said: "When we crossed the line in fourth, my emo­tions went from two ex­tremes, from sad to ec­sta­t­ic."

Cana­da ap­pealed the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion, but it was de­nied, and T&T was award­ed the bronze. "It was a good feel­ing. We knew what was on the line. We did our part and the re­sults did the rest," said Burns His team­mate Bled­man added, "We put our hearts in­to it. This is the great­est team. I just can't ex­plain this feel­ing," said Bled­man, who seemed to be in ex­treme pain af­ter the race. "I wasn't even sure I could run to­day (yes­ter­day). My leg was cramp­ing and I was get­ting a pain in my hips but I de­cid­ed just to leave it out on the track." The quar­tet fed off the suc­cess of T&T's sec­ond Olympic gold medal which was achieved ear­li­er in the day by javelin throw­er Keshorn Wal­cott, who beat a more ex­pe­ri­enced field to fol­low up his suc­cess ear­li­er this year when he won the event at the World Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships.

How­ev­er, they had no an­swer for Us­ain Bolt and his Ja­maican team­mates who de­stroyed their own world record by ful­ly 2/10th of a sec­ond, run­ning a re­mark­able 36.84 sec­onds while the Amer­i­cans, which in­clud­ed Trell Kim­mons, Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay and Ryan Bai­ley, equalled the for­mer world mark of 37.04, a new na­tion­al record. Olympic 100m and 200m cham­pi­on Bolt and his team­mate Blake, dou­ble-sil­ver medal­list, did not dis­ap­point as the lat­ter ran a blis­ter­ing third leg to set up the vic­to­ry. This was af­ter Nes­ta Carter and Michael Frater pro­duced ex­cel­lent first and sec­ond legs, re­spec­tive­ly. Bolt pulled away to leave Bai­ley in his dust, to de­light of the ca­pac­i­ty crowd. Cal­len­der on be­half of the unit sent out ap­pre­ci­a­tion from to T&T for the sup­port and al­so in­clud­ed his fel­low team­mates who did not run but played a great part in the team's suc­cess. "I must men­tion Jamol James and Ron­del Sor­ril­lo be­cause they sup­port­ed us. They didn't get a chance to run but they had an im­por­tant role in us go­ing out there and run­ning our hearts out." He al­so went on to thank Aaron Arm­strong for al­so be­ing sup­port­ive of the group.

Re­sults

Men's Javelin Throw

1 Keshorn Wal­cott, TRI 84.58

2 Olek­san­dr Py­at­nyt­sya, 84.51

3 Antti Ru­uska­nen, FIN 84.12

4 Vitezslav Vese­ly, CZE 83.34

5 Tero Pitka­ma­ki, FIN 82.80

6 An­dreas Thork­ild­sen, NOR 82.63

7 Spiri­don Lebe­sis, GRE 81.91

8 Tino Haber, GER 81.21

9 Stu­art Far­quhar, NZL 80.22

10 Rod­er­ick Gen­ki Dean, JPN 79.95

11 Ari Man­nio, FIN 78.60

12 Julius Yego, KEN 77.15

Men's 4 x 100m Re­lay

1 Ja­maica 36.84

2 Unit­ed States 37.04

3 Trinidad & To­ba­go 38.12

4 France 38.16

5 Japan 38.35

6 Nether­lands 38.39

7 Aus­tralia 38.43