By BRENT STUBBS
Senior Sports Reporter
bstubbs@tribunemedia.net
The women’s 4 x 400 metre relay team took advantage of the Blue Marlin Track Classic on Independence Day to clinch the last of the 16 spots for the trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the 2016 Olympic Games.
The one-day meet, organised by Demarius Cash, served as a last chance meet for the relay teams to secure a lane in Rio while some athletes got a chance to qualify for their respective countries or, in the case of the Bahamas, to prove their fitness level.
While the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations also ran a women’s 4 x 100m and two men’s 4 x 100m teams, the women’s 4 x 400m team of Lanece Clarke, Carmiesha Cox, Christine Amertil and Shaquania Dorsett clocked three minutes and 30.34 seconds to win the final race of Sunday’s one-day meet.
The time was a bit slower than the 3:28.46 that the Bahamas ran at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China last year. But the average of the two times has pushed the Bahamas at 3:29.39 for the 16th spot.
On Sunday, the team held off Trinidad & Tobago, who did 3:30.37 for second and Jamaica, who was third in 3:39.66, as they battled for one of the eight remaining spots after the eight finishers in the final at the World Championships automatically qualified.
Afterwards, the women expressed their gratitude in getting the job done.
“I felt pretty good, knowing that I had three phenomenal ladies waiting for me in front of the home crowd, I knew I had a task to do and so I went out there and I executed,” said Clarke, who brought the baton around in second place on the first leg.
“I feel really good because we have a group of young athletes coming up to fill the gap when the older ones like me and Christine retire.”
Cox, one of the youngsters expected to fill some of the void, held her own, coming off the final curve in second place behind Jamaica as she closed in the gap to pass the baton onto Amertil.
“I felt good. I had a shaky exchange, but I felt I executed. I just wanted to represent my country and I felt that I did that,” said Cox about her leg in the relay. “I ran with these ladies last year, so it was great running with them. We were home, so it was a blast doing it here.”
And Amertil, now the elder stateswoman of the team, said she was quite comfortable as she stayed behind Trinidad & Tobago when they got the lead on the back stretch, only to come back on the home stretch to pass her to give the baton to Dorsett with a slight lead.
“We knew what we had to do before we came out,” she said. “We came down to the last race before the deadline, but we were confident in our abilities. It’s just great to do it. I knew the importance of this race, so I wasn’t saving anything. I just put my all and all into the race. I’m just proud of these young ladies.”
Dorsett, the youngest member of the team at 18, who is coming off her 400m silver medal performance at the Carifta Games in Guyana in April, was too weak to talk about her thrilling run as she held off Trinidad & Tobago’s anchor leg.
Trinidad & Tobago had passed Dorsett going around the first 50m. But Dorsett stayed right behind her on the backstretch and surged to the front on the home stretch for the win.
Pauline Davis-Thompson, who celebrated her 50th birthday in grand style on Friday night with an all-white bash on the beachfront, had nothing but praise for the quartet after she set the international pace for the women’s quarter-milers.
“Words cannot express how proud I am of the women’s 4 x 400m relay team,” she said. “I would have given anything to run a 4 x 400m relay at the World Championships or the Olympic Games for my beloved Bahamas.
“Heck, I have only ran 4 x 400m at the Carifta Games. That was one of my biggest regrets. I hope that these young ladies know how lucky they are to have this privilege. It would have been nice to have them around during my time.”
The Bahamas attempted to qualify in the women’s 4 x 100m, but the team of Pedrya Seymour, Tynia Gaither, Lanece Clarke and Anthonique Strachan only ran 43.65 for second place behind Trinidad & Tobago, who won in 43.16.
The Bahamas’ time was faster than the 44.11 that was ran in the heats of the World Relays and 44.14 for second in the B final. But it still didn’t crack the top 16 in the world. The Bahamas was not listed in the top 24 as released by the IAAF.
And on the men’s side, the Bahamas had two teams entered in the 4 x 100m. The A team of Tadashi Pinder, Shavez Hart, Blake Bartlett and Adrian Griffith did 39.72 for second and the B team of Warren Fraser, Teray Smith, Ian Kerr and Jamial Rolle got third in 40.67. Trinidad & Tobago won in 39.94.
The Bahamas’ times were not faster than the 39.32 in the heats and 39.56 for eighth place in the B final of the World Relays, so the men will not earn a spot in Rio. The IAAF didn’t have the Bahamas listed in the top 24.
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