Nicholas Clarke

Shot put­ter Cleopa­tra Borel, will be­gin T&T's bid for medals at the 15th IAAF World Cham­pi­onships in Bei­jing, Chi­na, when she com­petes in the qual­i­fy­ing round of her event tonight at 10.10 pm (T&T time).

It will mark Borel's sixth ap­pear­ance at the World Cham­pi­onships. Her best per­for­mance to date came in Daegu, South Ko­rea in 2011 when she fin­ished 13th over­all. That year was her best ever as she im­proved her na­tion­al out­door record to 19.42m at the IAAF Di­a­mond League in Paris, France. In Berlin, Ger­many in 2009, she nar­row­ly missed the fi­nals by 11 cm. An­nie Alexan­der was T&T's sec­ond rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the event when she joined Borel in Berlin and placed 27th in the qual­i­fy­ing round with a mark of 16.01m.

At 35, Borel is the old­est of the eight fe­male and 11 male com­peti­tors for team T&T and will be com­pet­ing against 68 oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al ath­letes. No male ath­lete has yet com­pet­ed for T&T at the World Champs in the shot put.

This year has been a stel­lar year for Borel as she won gold at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Toron­to, Cana­da af­ter bronze in 2007 (Rio de Janeiro) and sil­ver in 2011(Guadala­jara). Of all the ath­letes reg­is­tered to com­pete in Bei­jing, Borel has the fourth best throw this year (19.26m) so the prospect of a medal is re­al. The NAAA wish­es Borel and the team all the best on their quest for pre­cious met­al.

T&T suf­fered a ma­jor blow to its medal chances when Pan Amer­i­can bronze medal­lists Ron­dell Sor­ril­lo and Dan-Neil Teles­ford were both forced out of the Cham­pi­onships, af­ter com­ing down with in­juries. With less than 36 hours be­fore the start, team doc­tor Anyl Goopesingh in­di­cat­ed that Sor­ril­lo had suf­fered a grade two strain of the quadri­ceps, a re-in­jury of the quads that first oc­curred dur­ing the IAAF World Re­lays in Ba­hamas three months ago, while Teles­ford had a loose body in his left knee.

Sor­ril­lo was sched­uled to run in to­mor­row's 100m heats, while Teles­ford was part of the Men's 4x100m re­lay pool. Both ath­letes were part of T&T's Pan Am 4x100m bronze medal win­ning team in Toron­to last month.With their de­par­ture, the team has been de­plet­ed to a bare four (Ke­ston Bled­man, Em­manuel Cal­len­der, Kyle Greaux, Mikel Thomas).

2013 World 400m hur­dles cham­pi­on Je­hue Gor­don will start the de­fense of his ti­tle at 6:35am (T&T time) to­mor­row morn­ing. The event is one of two in which T&T has medaled in both the male and fe­male cat­e­gories with the 100m be­ing the oth­er. The semi­fi­nals are set for Sun­day at 6.40 am with the fi­nals card­ed for Tues­day at 8.25 am.

Team T&T has earned one gold medal through Gor­don, who won the one lap hur­dles ti­tle in Moscow, Rus­sia in a na­tion­al record of 47.69 sec­onds two years ago. He be­came the sec­ond se­nior World Cham­pi­on for T&T fol­low­ing Ato Boldon's suc­cess in the 200m in 1997 in Athens, Greece. It al­so marked his sec­ond glob­al ti­tle af­ter cap­tur­ing the 2010 World Ju­nior crown in Monc­ton, Cana­da.

With his vic­to­ry in Moscow, Gor­don be­came the youngest ever win­ner of the Men's 400m hur­dles at 21 years, 243 days. He al­so set the record as the youngest fi­nal­ist when he was fourth in the event in 2009, Berlin, Ger­many at 17 years, 246 days with a time of 48.26 (a then na­tion­al record and the fastest ever time by a 17-year-old). He im­proved on the 48.66 set in the heats.

It will mark Gor­don's fourth World Cham­pi­onships. Fol­low­ing his stun­ning per­for­mance in Berlin, much was ex­pect­ed two years lat­er in Daegu, South Ko­rea but he bowed out in the semi­fi­nals, miss­ing the fi­nal by 0.01 sec­onds.

As the reign­ing cham­pi­on, he re­ceived an au­to­mat­ic spot in­to the cham­pi­onships though his 2015 sea­son has been in­ter­rupt­ed with in­juries, which pre­vent­ed him from com­pet­ing at the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Toron­to in Ju­ly. He al­so had a spill on the IAAF Di­a­mond League cir­cuit, which slowed down his progress. His sea­son's best of 49.22 ranks him at 23rd among the ath­letes en­tered to com­pete. How­ev­er, the UWI, QRC and Bel­mont Boys Sec­ondary grad­u­ate will be de­ter­mined to put in a good fight to de­fend his ti­tle.