An­dre Bap­tise

Bei­jing

Like an­oth­er fel­low from T&T with the same first name, Machel Ce­de­nio will be hop­ing to per­form 'like a boss', when he tack­les a high qual­i­ty field in the men's 400 me­tres fi­nal at the World Cham­pi­onships here in Bei­jing, to­mor­row.Ce­de­nio fin­ished third in his semi­fi­nal yes­ter­day to progress as one of two fastest losers from the three semi­fi­nals.

Unit­ed States' Lashawn Mer­ritt won the event from South Africa's Wayde Van Niek­erk. "I would not change any­thing but over­all it was a good race. I lis­tened to my coach and I went out, which I don't nor­mal­ly do. I didn't feel like how I nor­mal­ly feel com­ing home, but it was still a de­cent run," Ce­de­nio told the T&T Guardian.

Ce­de­nio, 19, will be the youngest in to­mor­row's fi­nal.Among the men he will face is Olympic cham­pi­on Ki­rani James of Grena­da, who ad­vanced af­ter win­ning his semi­fi­nal in 44.16 secs.James will at­tempt to re­gain the world ti­tle he first won in Daegu, South Ko­rea in 2011. Luguelin San­tos fol­lowed James as the on­ly two qual­i­fiers from the first semi­fi­nal and in the process a Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic record of 44.26.

The world leader and African record hold­er Isaac Mak­wala of Botswana ad­vanced with the fastest time of 44.11.Al­so in the field are: reign­ing world cham­pi­on Mer­ritt and Van Niek­erk, the on­ly man to beat James this sea­son. The oth­er fi­nal­ists in­clude Yousef Ahmed Mas­rahi of Sau­di Ara­bia, who post­ed 43.93 in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies and Britain's Rabah Yousif.

None of the names are in­tim­i­dat­ing the youth­ful T&T ath­lete, how­ev­er. "I am just go­ing in­to the fi­nal to have fun, so I am tak­ing it step by step. I thank God for bring­ing me through the rounds and you know it is a good step with Olympic next year. I just thank God that I am a world fi­nal­ist right now," de­clared Ce­de­nio.

Ce­de­nio de­scribed the semi­fi­nal as tough. "I took it step by step and held it down. This was not the per­fect race. I still have not found that race as yet," he said.Ce­de­nio is hop­ing for that per­fect race at 9.25am (T&T time) to­mor­row."The ex­tra day's rest will help in the re­cov­ery of my mus­cles and men­tal­ly pre­pare me for the fi­nals. The plan was to take it out a lit­tle faster than be­fore and use my strength to come home."

As to the plan for to­day's fi­nal, Ce­de­nio said he will talk it over with his coach. "De­pend­ing on the lane I get, we will see. Right now I am just grate­ful to be in the fi­nal. No mat­ter what lane as we will all run 400 me­tres."He was al­so ex­cit­ed at the prospect of con­tes­tifg the re­lay fi­nal. "We have a good strong re­lay team with all the guys run­ning un­der 45, so that is some­thing very ex­cit­ing

The oth­er two T&T semi­fi­nal­ists Olympic bronze medal­list La Londe Gor­don and Ren­ny Quow both failed to qual­i­fy. Gor­don fin­ished 9th and felt a bet­ter lane would have helped. "Ah boy, If I had a bet­ter lane. I am a man that likes to run from the out­side lane, so lane three was like two on this track so al­though I got to see every­body, it was not the lane I want­ed," he said. "I am go­ing to get some rest and go out there on Fri­day and make the coun­try proud. It is all about rest right now and fo­cussing on the 4x4."

Quow fin­ished fifth in his se­mi fi­nal. "It was a tough race. I gave it a shot and to­day was not good enough but we will fo­cus again. We have the re­lays and every­one is look­ing for­ward to that."