Clay­ton Clarke

De­on Lendore opened his out­door sea­son in grand style blaz­ing a per­son­al best of 45.00 sec­onds in win­ning the men's 400 me­tres at the LSU Alum­ni Gold in Ba­ton Rouge, Louisiana, USA yes­ter­day.

The Olympic men's 4x400m bronze medal­list was a com­pre­hen­sive win­ner get­ting to the line a sec­ond ahead of Stephon Pamil­ton (Illi­nois) 46.00 with Ar­man­ti Hayes (Tigers Olympians) in third (46.29).

"I was pleased. I just went out there to ex­e­cute a prop­er race plan. Time was not the main is­sue," said the Texas A&M stu­dent, who im­proved on his pre­vi­ous best of 45.13 set last May. The Ari­ma res­i­dent was rac­ing in his first in­di­vid­ual event of the out­door sea­son af­ter he com­pet­ed in sev­er­al re­lays for his uni­ver­si­ty.

The Queen's Roy­al Col­lege grad­u­ate is now sec­ond on the World Rank­ings be­hind Grena­da's Olympic and World Cham­pi­on Ki­rani James, who clocked 44.72 in his open­er in Ba­hamas on April 13. The 21-year-old is now on the verge on join­ing the sub 45 elite club.

Triple Olympic medal­list Richard Thomp­son and Lendore's school mate Wayne Davis 11 record­ed top two fin­ish­es. Thomp­son was part of the Tiger Olympian team which fin­ished sec­ond in the men's 4x100m in 39.16 be­hind Texas A&M (39.02). Sher­mund All­sop and his LSU out­fit was fourth (39.24).

Davis was run­ner-up in the men's 110m hur­dles in 13.65 as world record hold­er and Olympic gold medal­list Aries Mer­rritt (USA) struck gold in 13.37. Aleena Brooks (Min­neso­ta) fin­ished sev­enth in the women's 400m in 54.14.

De­an­dra Daniel (Cop­pin State) was vic­to­ri­ous in the women's high jump at the Mor­gan State Lega­cy Meet in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, clear­ing 1.68m on her last at­tempt to take the top spot ahead of com­pa­tri­ot Jeanelle Ovid (Mor­gan State) 1.63m.

An­oth­er Mor­gan State ath­lete Em­manuel Stew­art grabbed bronze in the men's Javelin with a dis­tance of 62.65m achieved on his fourth throw.

Shawn Fer­min (Wash­ing­ton State) missed a top three fin­ished in the women's 400m Elite race at the Mc Sac Re­lays in Azusa, Cal­i­for­nia. The 2012 NACAC Un­der 23 4x400m sil­ver medal­list crossed the line in 52.88 sec­onds miss­ing the bronze by 0.01 sec­onds.