Sunday, September 5 2010

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s Kelly-Ann Baptiste continued her remarkable run of form in Europe yesterday, winning two gold medals on the opening day of the IAAF/VTB Bank Continental Cup currently underway in Split, Croatia.

Baptiste’s stock as a sprinter has improved tremendously since switching training Camps earlier this year. An amazing 10.84 performance as well as numerous top three performances on the European circuit put her as one the favourites for the gold yesterday in the absence of USA’s Carmelita Jeter and Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown.

Baptiste, a former NCAA sprint champion, first won the gold medal in the Women’s 100m final in an impressive time of 11.05 seconds. Baptiste, the first female athlete from TT to compete at the IAAF “World Cup”, wrote her name in the history books as her time was the fourth fastest winning time ever at the IAAF event.

USA’s Shalonda Solomon was second in 11.09 seconds while Nigerian Blessing Okagbare placed third in a time of 11.14 seconds.

Okagbare, the African champion, got off to her usual fast start but Baptiste quickly found her stride and took control of the race. Meanwhile, Solomon, in lane one, was also running well but it was Baptiste who crossed first while Solomon pipped Okagbare for the silver.

Baptiste, the national champion, revealed that she was not nervous going into the race and was confident she would perform well.

“I didn’t feel any pressure before the start,” said Baptiste. “I knew I would run a good race.”

Baptiste was on the tracks again, combining with Bahamain Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie, USA’s Solomon and Cydonie Mothersille of the Cayman Islands to win gold for the Americas team.

With Baptiste running the anchor leg, the quartet stopped the clock at 43.07 well ahead of the Ukrainian team (Olesya Povh, Nataliya Pohrebnyak,; Mariya Ryemyen and Elizaveta Bryzhina) which competed for Europe.

The Ukrainians crossed the finish line in 43.77 while Africa (Ruddy Zang Milama, Agnes Osazuwa, Oludamola Osayomi and Blessing Okagbare) earned the bronze medal with a time of 43.88.

Asia-Pacific (Maki Wada, Chisato Fukushima, Yumeka Sano and Momoko Takahashi) was a distant fourth in 44.54.

After the a first-day at the Continental Cup The Americas lead by nine points from Europe after winning eight of 20 competitions on the opening day of the two-day meet, which also features regional teams from Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Bernard Lagat, the 2007 world champion, won the 5,000 in 13 minutes, 58.23 seconds. Jeremy Wariner, a three-time Olympic champion, took the 400 in 44.22 seconds. The 4x100 relay team led by Tyson Gay finished first, as did Dwight Phillips in the long jump and Christian Catwell in the shot put.

Gay, the fastest man this season at 100 metres, was unable to run the individual race because he missed the USA Nationals this season and Continental Cup regulations require that an athlete must have competed in their nation’s individual championships.

However, he combined with Daniel Bailey, Wallace Spearmon and Churandy Martina to win the sprint relay in 38.25 seconds.

In Gay’s absence, Christophe Lamaitre of France won for Europe in the 100 in 10.06 seconds, followed by Bailey for Americas in 10.10. Britain’s David Greene added another victory for Europe at 400 hurdles, finishing in 47.88 seconds.

Two other Americas victories in men’s competitions came from the triple world champion and 2004 Olympic medallist Phillips, who scored another victory in long jump with 8.34 metres, while Christian Catwell, current world champion, won again in shot put, throwing 21.87. Tomasz Majewski, 2008 Olympic champion, was second with 21.22.

In women’s races, Olympic silver medallist Janeth Jepkosgei Businei of Kenya won the 800 for Africa in 1 minute, 57.88 seconds. She was followed by Kenia Sinclair, running for Americas, 0.28 seconds behind. Jepkosgei is having a winning streak lately, having beaten both European leader Mariya Savinova and Caster Semenya a week ago in Brussels.

The African team is third with 148 points and Asia-Pacific is last with 134 points.