Clydeen Mc Don­ald

T&T's Josanne Lu­cas claimed a bronze medal in the women's 400-me­tre hur­dles at the VTB Bank World Ath­let­ics Fi­nal in Thes­sa­loni­ki, Greece, yes­ter­day. Lu­cas, re­turned a time of 54.31 sec­onds–a time way be­low the na­tion­al record of 53.20, which she pro­duced to take bronze in the event at the World Cham­pi­onship in Ger­many, last month.

Fin­ish­ing ahead of the 25-year-old was World and Olympic cham­pi­on Melaine Walk­er, of Ja­maica, who es­tab­lished a new Cham­pi­onships record of 53.36 and Kaliese Spencer (53.99). Lashin­da De­mus, who failed to fin­ish the event af­ter suf­fer­ing a ham­string in­jury ear­ly in the race, held the pre­vi­ous record of 53.37 sec­onds which she set in 2005. Lu­cas' third place fin­ish was three tenths of a sec­ond clear of fourth placed An­gela Mo­rosanu, of Ro­ma­nia, and al­lowed her to pick up a prize of US $12,000.

An­oth­er T&T run­ner, Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste fin­ished a dis­ap­point­ing eighth in the women's 100m. Bap­tiste record­ed a sub-par 11.27 in the race, which was won by Amer­i­can Carmeli­ta Jeter in a new cham­pi­onship record of 10.67. Sec­ond place went to World and Olympic cham­pi­on Shelly-Ann Fras­er of Ja­maica in 10.89 with her coun­try­woman Ker­ron Stew­art third in 10.90.

Oth­er Caribbean ath­letes ahead of Bap­tiste were Ba­hamas' Chan­dra Stur­rup (11.17) in fourth, Ja­maica's Sherone Simp­son (11.20) in fifth, Deb­bie Fer­gu­son-McKen­zie of Ba­hamas in sixth and US Vir­gin Is­lands run­ner LaV­erne Jones-Fer­rette (11.25) in sev­enth.