The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas, with a mixed relay team and three individual athletes, didn’t have a successful negotiation through the qualifying rounds of their respective events to advance on Friday as the World Athletics’ 2022 World Championships got underway in Eugene, Oregon.

In the heats of the mixed relay, the Bahamas team of 24-year-old Bradley Dormeus, running a split of 47.94, 20-year-old Megan Moss (52.23), 30-year-old Bahamian Alonzo Russell (43.80) and 21-year-old Doneisha Anderson (53.76) finished seventh in three minutes and 19.73 seconds.

The team finished in 15th place with the two heats combined.

Grand Bahamian Donald Thomas, the 38-year-old 2007 world champion, bowed out of the qualifying rounds of the men’s high jump with a leap of 7-feet, 3-inches or 2.21 metres for a tie in 12th place in Group B and 23rd overall.

In the evening session of day one, Samson Colebrooke was the only competitor to show up in the heats of the men’s 100m. He placed fifth in heat five in 10.23 for 39th place overall. American Fred Kerley had the leading performance with a stunning time of 9.97, followed by his compatriot Trayvon Bromell in 9.89.

Grand Bahamian native Terrence Jones Jr was also scheduled to compete, but he didn’t.

The only other competitor in action on Friday night was LaQuan Nairn in the qualifying round of the men’s long jump. He soared 25-7 1/4 (7.80m) for 10th in Group B and 18th overall. The top qualifier was Yuki Hashoka of Japan with 26-10 (8.18m) with American Marquis Derdy trailing with 26-9 ¼ (8.16m).

On Saturday as day two unfolds, Anthonique Strachan, 28, will continue the Bahamas trek through the 10-day competition being held in the United States for the first time, when she contests the first heat of the women’s 100m.

The Bahamian national runner-up will run out of lane three with her lifetime and season’s best of 10.99 ahead of her 27-year-old Jamaican training partner Shericka Jackson, who will run out of lane two with her season’s best of 10.77, just off her personal best of 10.76.

And 29-year-old national champion TyNia Gaither will follow in heat two in lane eight with her season’s beat of 11.11. Her lifetime best is 11.02. The top contender in her heat is Jamaica’s 35-year-old Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who will also run out of lane two with her season’s best of 10.67 and her lifetime best of 10.60.

The top three finishers in each of the seven heats and the next two fastest finishers will advance to the semi-final on Sunday. Both Strachan and Gaither will also contest the 200m starting on Monday with the heats.

Also on Sunday, repeat Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo, 28, will open her campaign in the women’s 400m as she goes after the gold that slipped away from her in 2019 in Doha, Qatar when she was beaten by Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser.  

The Bahamas, however, will not have 26-year-old Steven Gardiner in Eugene to defend his world title in the men’s 400m. Gardiner announced just before the start of the championships that he had to withdraw from the competition with a UTE tendon inflammation to his right foot.

The Bahamas also has the women’s 4 x 400m relay; Devynne Charlton in the women’s 100m hurdles and Ken Mullings in the men’s decathlon to compete later in the week in the bid to continue a string of winning at least one medal at the championships since 2013.