Tuesday, December 15 2009

QUARTER-MILER Renny Quow finished 2009 as the highest ranked TT athlete, male or female, in the world.

The 22-year-old gave a spirited performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, qualifying for the final of the Men’s 400m event and placing seventh in a time of 45.22 seconds.

The 2009 season promised to be the breakout year for Quow, and he did not disappoint, starting the season with back-to-back victories in February. He first took the gold at the Millrose Games in New York and followed up the win with another on the US Indoor Circuit, scorching the track to place first at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games in 47.22 seconds.

The one-lap champion then gave his fans at home a glimpse of what was in store at the World Championships with a brilliant performance at the Mondo track of the Hasely Crawford Stadium at the National Championships. The Tobagonian obliterated the field to win the gold medal in 44.91 seconds.

He entered the World Championships in Berlin as one of the main medal hopefuls for TT and showed he is ready for the world stage with a bronze medal, achieving a personal best of 44.53 seconds.

Meanwhile Ato Stephens formerly known as Ato Modibo, who was suspended for two years by the IAAF for testing positive for banned substances closed 2009 ranked 17th.

He will be 32 years old at the end of his ban and it is left to be seen what impact he can make on his career then. Olympic 100 metres silver medallist Richard Thompson was the toast of 2008 for athletics in TT but started 2009 on the wrong foot, suffering injuries in a vehicular accident on New Years Day.

He finished the year ranked seventh in the world, sprinting to victory at the National Championships in June in a time of 10.01 seconds but was out of the medals at the World Championships two months later, placing a creditable fifth in 9.93 seconds.

Compatriot Marc Burns was seventh in that final and ended 2009 13th in the world. Aaron Armstrong is ranked 22nd while Darrel Brown and Emmanuel Callender are tied for 28th.

Seventeen-year-old Jehue Gordon, who crossed the finish-line fourth in the 400m hurdles in Berlin, is ranked eighth after his 48.26 effort at the ‘Worlds’. The performance which was just shy of a first ever medal at an international event in the world was labelled as the top performance of the year by Ephraim Serrette, president of the National Amateur Athletics Association.

TT’s 4x100m relay team is undoubtedly one of the best in the world and they followed up their silver medal at the Olympics last year with a scintillating effort at the ‘World’ final which saw them take the runner-up position behind Jamaica again. Their 37.62 time was a new national record and the third fastest time in history by a national team.

The 4x400m relay men are ranked 27th in the world.