Keshorn Wal­cott booked a spot in his third World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships men’s javelin fi­nals af­ter he ad­vanced from the qual­i­fy­ing round at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday.

Wal­cott was ninth with a dis­tance of 83.93 me­tres which was enough to fin­ish among the top 12 to vie for gold in the fi­nals set for 6.23 am to­day.

Com­pet­ing in Group A, the 2012 Lon­don Olympic Games cham­pi­on opened with 83.93m to lie in sec­ond be­hind de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Neer­aj Chopra of In­dia, whose 84.85 was over the au­to­mat­ic stan­dard of 84.50. Wal­cott was aim­ing to im­prove with his sec­ond throw but could on­ly get the javelin out to 77.61. The To­co Sec­ondary grad­u­ate dropped to third af­ter world leader Ger­many’s Ju­lian We­ber threw 87.21 to se­cure his spot in the fi­nals.

The 2012 World Un­der-20 win­ner then fouled his third and fi­nal throw and was rel­e­gat­ed to fifth po­si­tion as Poland’s David Weg­n­er reg­is­tered 85.67 on this third ef­fort, al­so over the qual­i­fy­ing bar­ri­er. Jakub Vadle­jch of Czechia al­so got past Wal­cott with his sec­ond round mark of 84.11. The 32-year-old then had to wait for the com­ple­tion of Group B where two-time win­ner (2019/2022) An­der­son Pe­ters of Grena­da sailed the javelin out to 89.53 on his sec­ond at­tempt, the best of the day with 2015 win­ner Julius Yego of Kenya (85.96) in sec­ond.

Paris Olympic win­ner Pak­istan’s Ar­shad Nadeem (85.28) and this year’s North Amer­i­can, Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (NACAC) vic­tor Cur­tis Thomp­son (84.72) of the USA al­so se­cured au­to­mat­ic places in the fi­nals. Wal­cott’s 83.93 was the ninth-best of 37 com­peti­tors and proved enough to be among the 12 throw­ers to qual­i­fy for the medal round.

In to­day’s fi­nal, he will be the 12th and fi­nal throw­er to com­pete and will be hop­ing to win T&T’s first medal in Tokyo.

The 2015 Pan Amer­i­can and 2018 and 2023 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games cham­pi­on will be hop­ing to re­dis­cov­er the form that led him to the 2012 Olympic ti­tle as a 19-year-old. Un­der his new coach Dr Klaus Bar­toni­etz of Ger­many, Wal­cott will be seek­ing to get on the podi­um at the World Se­nior Cham­pi­onships for the first time. His best fin­ish was sev­enth at the 2017 World Cham­pi­onships in Lon­don, Eng­land. He was al­so 11th, two years lat­er in Do­ha, Qatar.

Jereem Richards will have all con­fi­dence, that Thurs­day will be T&T’s gold­en day in Tokyo when he lines up in the men’s 400m fi­nal at 9.10 am. Richards will start in the tight lane two and will have the for­tune of see­ing the en­tire field on his out­side. The na­tion­al record-hold­er will look to the 2000 Olympic 400m cham­pi­on Aus­tralian Cathy Free­man for in­spi­ra­tion as she won the 1997 World women’s 400m ti­tle from the in­side lane. Amer­i­can An­ge­lo Tay­lor al­so raced to the 2000 Olympic men’s 400m hur­dles crown from the con­fines of lane one. Richards is the lone fi­nal­ist with a glob­al in­di­vid­ual ti­tle af­ter he won the 2022 In­door 400m crown in Bel­grade, Ser­bia.

In the semi­fi­nals on Tues­day, Richards was third-fastest in a sea­son’s best of 44.12. Botswana’s Bu­sang Ke­bi­nat­shipi was the quick­est (43.61, na­tion­al record) ahead of Ja­maican record-hold­er (43.93) Rusheen Mc Don­ald, who ran 44.04, both of whom fin­ished ahead of Richards in semi­fi­nal two. The 31-year-old will be seek­ing to be the first T&T’s quar­ter­mil­er to get on the podi­um at the World Out­door Cham­pi­onships since Ren­ny Quow raced to bronze in 2009 in Berlin, Ger­many.

Leah Bertrand fin­ished down the field in her women’s 200m heats yes­ter­day. Bertrand was sixth in heat four in 23.33 sec­onds, well off her per­son­al best of 22.57. Olympic bronze medal­list and this year’s Di­a­mond League fi­nal win­ner Amer­i­can Brit­tany Brown was first in 22.50 ahead of the 2025 NACAC cham­pi­on An­thonique Stra­chan of the Ba­hamas (22.57) and mul­ti­ple Olympic and World Cham­pi­onships 4x100m medal­list Great Britain’s Daryll Nei­ta (22.59), who all ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nals set for to­day. Switzer­land’s Leonie Poinetet (23.04), Ital­ian Dali Kad­dari (23.11) all got the fin­ish line ahead of Bertrand but did not qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals. Swede No­ra Lind­hal (23.35) and Chi­na’s Yut­ing Li (23.64) were sev­enth and eighth, re­spec­tive­ly.

Amer­i­can Anavia Bat­tle was the quick­est in the heats with her 22.07 clock­ing to win the first heat. Bat­tle’s com­pa­tri­ot, the 100m gold medal­list Melis­sa Jef­fer­son-Wood­en, was next fastest (22.24) af­ter she cap­tured the sec­ond heat. Two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Ja­maican Sh­er­ic­ka Jack­son (22.33) was third best af­ter tak­ing heat five.