Rachael Thom­spon-King

T&T sprint­er Michelle-Lee Ahye set a new na­tion­al record of 7.09 sec­onds to make it in­to the se­mi-fi­nals of the women's 60 me­tres at the IAAF World In­door Cham­pi­onships at the Ore­gon Con­ven­tion Cen­tre in Port­land, USA, yes­ter­day.

Ahye won heat four with ease, fin­ish­ing ahead of Britain's Di­na Ash­er-Smith (7.12) and Glo­ria Hoop­er of Italy, who ran a per­son­al best of 7.29 to take the fi­nal au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion spot.

"I'm very hap­py about it. I was ex­pect­ing it to hap­pen, but not in the first round," Ahye was quot­ed say­ing on the IAAF web­site.

Kel­ly Ann Bap­tiste ran her sea­son's best 7.20 to fin­ish third in the first heat of the dash which was good enough to take her in­to the se­mi-fi­nals and hope­ful­ly in­to the fi­nal. Both races were sched­uled for last night.

Quar­ter­mil­ers De­on Lendore and Lalonde Gor­don both ad­vance to the fi­nal of the men's 400m event. Lendore crossed sec­ond in the first se­mi-fi­nal in a time of 46.23. He fol­lowed Grena­di­an Bralon Ta­plin (45.38) to the line with Kenya's Boni­face Mw­ere­sa run­ning a sea­son's best of 46.33 to take the third and the fi­nal qual­i­fi­ca­tion spot.

Gor­don held on for third in the sec­ond se­mi-fi­nal in a time of 46:03 to nab his place in the fi­nal. He was al­so quot­ed as say­ing af­ter­wards: "There's still work to do." With both Gor­don and Lendore mak­ing the fi­nals of the men's 400m dash, which was set for late last night, the quar­tet of Ron­dell Sor­ril­lo, Jar­rin Solomon, Ade Al­leynne Forte and Machel Ce­de­nio, in that or­der did well to ad­vance to the fi­nal of the men's 4x400m re­lay when they fin­ished third in heat one in a time of 3:07.83. The fi­nal is set for this evening.

Sor­ril­lo failed to progress out of the 60m event, plac­ing sixth in 6.68 in the first semi­fi­nals heat. Even­tu­al win­ner was Trayvon Bromell, who be­came the first US ath­lete to claim the men's world in­door 60m ti­tle in six years with a per­son­al best of 6.47.

Bromell, who al­most didn't make it through to the fi­nal at last week­end's US In­door Cham­pi­onships af­ter fin­ish­ing fourth in his semi­fi­nal, was the first man out of the blocks in lane three and main­tained his lead through­out to pre­vail over Ja­maica's Asafa Pow­ell (6.50) and Ra­mon Git­tens of Bar­ba­dos (6.51), re­spec­tive­ly.

Over on the field, Ayan­na Alexan­der fouled on all three her at­tempts in the women's triple jump event. Yuli­mar Ro­jas on­ly got in one valid jump but it was all that was need­ed for the Spain-based jumper, coached by Cuban long jump great Ivan Pe­droso, to get Venezuela's first world in­door ti­tle. Her sec­ond round ef­fort of 14.41m notched up her coun­try's first medal at this com­pe­ti­tion of any hue.

Late last night, "Sports­woman of the Year" Cleopa­tra Borel was to com­pete in the fi­nal of the women's shot put and hur­dler Mikel Thomas will be hop­ing to clear all his hur­dles to get in­to the semi­fi­nals when he was to run in lane two of heat four.