An­dre Bap­tise

Re­port­ing from Bei­jing

Trinidad and To­ba­go's 4x100 me­tres women re­lay team made his­to­ry, not once but twice in the same event.

First stop­ping the clock at 42.24 sec­onds in the semi­fi­nals and a few hours lat­er the quar­tet of Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste, Michelle Lee Ahye, Re­yare Thomas and Se­moy Hack­ett crossed the line in 42.03 be­hind the Amer­i­cans, who took sil­ver with a time of 41.68. Team Ja­maica won gold in a time of 41.07. In the process the squad be­came the first women sprint­ers to win a re­lay medal at the World Cham­pi­onships, an­oth­er his­toric achieve­ment.

In a race that was start­ed at quick speed, it was the leader of the team, the wily and ex­pe­ri­enced cap­tain, Bap­tiste, that led from the front, with a daz­zling first leg. She said af­ter: "I def­i­nite­ly trust Michelle, I knew that once I held by own and once I hand­ed over the stick to Michele, it was all go­ing to be okay.

Once they all got the sticks around the track, so I just felt that, the trust was there with­in all of us, we are com­fort­able with each oth­er, no­body doubts any­one fit­ness and foot speed at this point, so we were just hap­py, that we were able to put it to­geth­er, be­cause it is tough, it is tough, to run a re­lay when you have not been prac­tic­ing all year, so we came here since the 14th and we have been try­ing to work on our pass­es and I am just glad that it all worked out in the end."

Af­ter the race Lee Ay­he said, "I am so hap­py, at the mo­ment, my first World Cham­pi­onships and we have won a medal, it gives me en­er­gy to want to do more."Re­yare Thomas, who ran the third leg re­vealed: "It feel great to know that we come out here with a medal to­day. I ran okay enough that we were able to stay in the medal po­si­tion."

Hack­ett, who an­chored the team said: "I want to say, is that I am here with my friends and them. I think each per­son held their own, and gave 100 per cent and our ba­ton pass­ing was good enough to make us come third, be­cause every­body trust each oth­er and gave it their best. This team is go­ing to Rio."

Bap­tiste paid com­ple­ments to na­tion­al coach and for­mer olympian Ato Boldon. She said: "I def­i­nite­ly think, that Ato (Boldon) de­cid­ing to get on board in the first place helped us a lot, he has a lot of con­fi­dence in us and he told us that be­fore the heats, that he be­lieves this team can break the na­tion­al record and af­ter that he has said he be­lieves that this team can go be­low 42 sec­onds, it did not hap­pen but we were very close to 41, but I just think, his in­put def­i­nite­ly helped us all dur­ing this time."

She con­tin­ued: "Khal­i­fa St Fort, the youngest and newest team mem­ber, is an up and com­ing ath­lete, we are hap­py for her and she held her own, and she seems like a very ma­ture ath­lete and we are just ex­cit­ed by where sprint­ing is go­ing right now."The full 4x100 me­tres team com­pris­es Re­yare Thomas; Kel­ly Ann Bap­tiste; Se­moy Hack­ett; Khal­i­fa St Fort; Ka­maria Du­rant; Michelle Lee Ahye and Ato Boldon, who the team's sprint coach.

The Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NAAATT) has send con­grat­u­la­tions to the team for break­ing the na­tion­al record twice and be­com­ing the first group of women run­ners to win a re­lay medal. The NAAA al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed the en­tire coach­ing staff of Dr Ian Hy­po­lite, Ato Boldon and Gun­ness Per­sad, who worked close­ly with the ath­letes in achiev­ing their goals.

...Go­ing For 4x400m re­lay gold

The na­tion­al 4x400 me­tres re­lay sqaud of Ren­ny Quow, Jar­rin Solomon, De­on Lendore and Lalonde Gor­don qual­i­fied for to­day's fi­nal which will take place at 8.25 am (TT Time). The four-some post­ed a qual­i­fy­ing time and sea­son's best 2:58.67 sec­onds. They fin­ished sec­ond to the Amer­i­cans in heat two and and sec­ond over­all of the eight fi­nal­ists and will chal­lenge for the gold medal from Lane 4.

Run­ning in heat se­mi-fi­nal two, and from the dread­ed Lane 2 in a race that in­clud­ed the USA and Ja­maica Quow ran the open­ing leg, but he ad­mit­ted to the Trinidad Guardian."We were just to far down be­hind, I was just not feel­ing it to­day, but we we were able to go through be­cause we had a strong team and we can al­ways make it up be­cause if one mess up the oth­ers can come through, so to­day was not my day, but I will be al­right to­mor­row."

Solomon loves to run the sec­ond leg, but had some work to do re­ceiv­ing the ba­ton in last po­si­tion and he said: "I love to break and cut in­to the field from the sec­ond leg, we did not get off to the best start but that is why we have four legs. Every­one is go­ing to come at their best in the fi­nals, so we are not tak­ing any­thing for grant­ed, how­ev­er we ex­pect the usu­al four of USA, Ja­maica and Great Britain to be in the bat­tle for the medals."

Lendore who has been af­fect­ed by in­jury over the last few months and ran the third leg, was able to claw in­to his op­po­nents lead and hand over the ba­ton in third po­si­tion ," I have been off the track for a while, so this run felt good and I need­ed this as well, the idea was al­ways to just run and make it in­to the fi­nals, and we have ac­com­plished that."

Dou­ble Olympic medal­list Gor­don pro­duced one of the runs of his life as he pro­pelled T&T in­to sec­ond po­si­tion, af­ter one stage be­ing in fourth with 150 me­tres to race. "It was a good leg, a lit­tle messy from a few of the front run­ners, there was a lot of shov­ing, but I stayed fo­cus and pulled us through," Gor­don ex­plained.