http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_sports?id=161197814NO BEARING ON BEIJING
Officials play down poor World Champs
Kwame Laurence
Monday, September 3rd 2007
At the six editions of theIAAF World Championships in Athletics held between 1995 and 2005, Trinidad and Tobago appeared on the medal table five times. That impressive five-of-six record, however, dropped to five-of-seven following the 11th edition of the global meet, here in Osaka, Japan.
The last time T&T missed out on World Championship precious metal, ahead of Osaka 2007, was in 1999 in Seville, Spain, injury to Ato Boldon probably robbing the country of a perfect six-from-six record in the 95-05 decade.
T&T's Osaka team was also weakened by injury, sprinter Darrel Brown and jumper Rhonda Watkins both missing out.
Team manager Dexter Voisin told the Express that the medal-less World Championship performance is not an accurate reflection of the country's prospects at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
"Based on the absence of these two athletes, and probably others, this cannot be used as an indicator to 2008 Beijing."
National Amateur Athletic Association (NAAA) president Ephraim Serrette concurred.
"It's long ways before we could make a prediction, but based on the performances here-in the absence of Darrel and Rhonda-I think Trinidad and Tobago look well for Beijing."
Marc Burns was the best of the T&T athletes on show at the 2007 World Championships, the 24-year-old sprinter shrugging off a less-than-impressive build-up to the meet to advance all the way to the men's 100 metres final. Burns was eighth in the championship race in 10.29 seconds.
Ato Modibo also did well, reaching the semi-final round of the men's 400m. His 45.12 seconds clocking in thesemis was the 28-year-old quarter-miler's fastest run in more than two years.
On Saturday, Modibo teamed up with 18-year-old Jovon Toppin, Jarrin Solomon, 21, and Renny Quow, 20, for a three minutes, 02.92 seconds clocking in the second of two men's 4x400m qualifying heats. T&T finished fifth, and did not advance to yesterday's final. Toppin and Solomon, though, made memorable World Championship debuts.
"We saw some grit," said a satisfied Voisin, "especially with the youngsters. It's not theresult we had hoped for, but it was a good showing.
"The overall performance of the team," the manager continued, "is nothing to boast about. However, we knew that the team is a very young team. In the men's 4x1, our experienced athletes didn't come together to qualify. That would have been one of our medal hopes."
At the 2005 World Championships, in Helsinki, Finland, T&T claimed silver in the men's sprint relay.
"We're working with the Government and the Sports Company," Serrette explained, "to get the kind of funding for the relay pools to have them in training probably earlier, and with a better preparation plan than the individualism thing that is happening. They need to give some consideration where country is concerned with the relays. I thought we would have done well in the 4x1. We have a good crop of sprinters.
"We have to go back to the drawing board," the president continued, "and have better planning with respect to Beijing. We have a crop of young athletes. You saw young Jovon Toppin holding his own in the mile relay. It says something."
As expected, United States struck gold in yesterday's men's 4x400m final, LaShawn Merritt, Angelo Taylor, Darold Williamson and back-to-back one-lap champion Jeremy Wariner combining for a 2:55.56 clocking. Bahamas earned silver in 2:59.18, while Poland secured bronze in 3:00.05.
The mile relay championship race brought the curtain down on Osaka 2007, the Americans emerging as the top team with 14 gold medals, four silver and eight bronze. Kenya (five gold, three silver, five bronze) and Russia (four gold, nine silver, three bronze) were second and third, respectively.
Jamaica finished eighth on the medal table. In addition to Veronica Campbell's women's 100m gold, the northern Caribbean nation claimed six silver medals and three bronze.
And thanks to Donald Thomas' men's high jump gold and the silver medals earned by the men's 4x400m team and Derrick Atkins in the men's 100m, Bahamas copped ninth spot.
