The Tribune

LONDON England: She’s not exactly where she wants to be as far as her racing is concerned, but Anthonique Strachan is happy to be moving onto the semifinal of the women’s 200 metres at the 16th IAAF World Championships.

Strachan, who will celebrate her 24th birthday on August 22, had to power back off the curve on the straight away for a third place finish in the sixth of seven heats in a time of 23.23 for 15th place overall.

She wasn’t able to make up enough ground behind championship 100m silver medalist Marie-Josee Ta Lou from the Ivory Coast – third overall in 20.70 – and Sarah Atcho of Suriname –13th overall in 23.09. But she did enough to will join Olympic gold medalist Shanuae Miller-Uibo and Tynia Gaither who also made the semis.

“It was really nice,” Strachan said. “I got off to a fast start, which was really nice. That’s all I could ask for, having lane eight. I enjoyed it.”

After getting left behind coming of the curve, Strachan shifted into another gear as she powered back for her third place.

“That’s a product of drawing lane eight. You’re running really scared because you don’t know how close anyone is and the minute you glimpse anyone, you start to panic,” she said. “But I tried to keep my panicking down to a minimum since it was only six people in my heat and top three made it through.”

Now that she’s through, Strachan said she’s looking to improve on her time from there.

“It’s really nice because it’s been a long time since we had three individuals,” she stressed. “It’s really nice to see the Bahamas sprint team doing something again.”

In the semis, Strachan has drawn lane eight in the first of three heats with Schippers in five and American Deajah Stevens in six. The top two and the next two finishers will advance to the final.