The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

GRAND Bahamian Donald Thomas, the lone Bahamian competing in the World Athletics’ Wanda Diamond League Final, didn’t fare that well in the men’s high jump on Thursday at the Weltklasse, Zurich.

The 37-year-old multiple Bahamian national champion finished at the bottom of the six-man field with a leap of 7-feet, 4 1/4-inches or 2.24 metres.

Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi, who shared the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games’ gold medal with Mutam Essa Barshim from Qatar, won the Diamonds League title with 7-8 (2.34m). Andry Protsenko of the Ukraine was second with a season’s best of 7-6 1/2 (2.30m) and Iiya Ivanyuk, an Authorised Neutral Athlete, was third with the same height, but more knockdowns on the countback.

Thomas, the 2007 world champion who has won a medal at just about every international meet except the Olympic Games, came into the Diamond League Final with a season’s best of 7-5 ¾ (2.28m) and a lifetime achievement of 7-9 ¼ (2.37m). Thomas didn’t advance to the finals in Tokyo.

The Diamond League Final is the culmination of a series of 14 of the best invitational athletics meetings around the world. Athletes generate points in order to qualify in their various disciplines at the end of the competition.

The Diamond League, which got started in 2010, began this year in Gateshead, Great Britain on May 23. It followed with events in Doha (May 28th), Rome (June 10th), Oslo (July 1st), Stockholm (July 4th), Monaco (July 9th), London (July 13th), Eugene, Oregon (August 21st), Lausanne, Switzerland (August 26th), Paris, France (August 28th) and Brussel, Belgium (September 3rd).

Thomas, a perennial contender in the Diamond League Final, went into the Zurich final yesterday in seventh place with 14 points in four meets. Ivanyuk was the leader with 27 in four meets as well. Protsenko was second with 23 in four meets, while Tamberi was third with 16 in three meets.

No other Bahamian accumulated sufficient points in order to secure a spot in this year’s Wanda Diamond League Final. Both Steven Gardiner and Shaunae Miller-Uibo, coming off their gold medal performances in the men and women’s 400 metres at the Olympics in Tokyo, competed in sufficient meets in order to qualify.

Due to the surge in Covid-19, their competitions were limited mainly to the United States, expect for the Olympics Games. Miller-Uibo, along with Tonique Williams, are the only Bahamians to win a Diamond League Final, both coming in the women’s 400m.

Williams and Gardiner are also the only two Bahamians to win both the World Championships and Olympic titles in the same event.