Caribbean Sports Network

TRINIDAD and Tobago’s Aaron Armstrong placed sixth yesterday in the Men’s 100m final at the IAAF World Challenge in Zagreb, Croatia. Armstrong stopped the clock at 10.24 seconds in a relatively slow race in unfavourable sprinting conditions. American Tyson Gay was the only athlete to dip below 10 seconds, taking the gold medal in 9.92. Jamaican Nesta Carter took the silver in a time of 10.07 seconds while USA’s Mike Rodgers was third in 10.14.Jamaican Michael Frater crossed the finish line fourth in 10.17.

“It wasn’t as fast as I wanted to run, but I’m happy with the victory,” said Gay, who remained unbeaten in five 100m outings this season. His perfect record looked in jeopardy at the start, though, as Carter bolted out the blocks with Gay fumbling on his first few strides.

Lined up in lane five with co-world leader Nesta Carter just to his inside, Gay played catch up from the gun when his starting blocks slipped, forcing him to slip while simultaneously trying to avoid what he described as a “slight panic mode”.

“You can recover, you just can’t panic, and you have to pump your arms harder,” Gay explained, providing a primer on slipped block recovery.

He did just that and drew even with Carter at about 70 metres. A stride later the two bumped hands before Gay powered away over the final 20 metres. Gay estimated that he would have run in the mid-9.8 range had the contact not occurred.

Next on the calendar is the IAAF/VTB Bank Continental Cup in Croatia on Saturday where TT will be represented by national champion Kelly- Ann Baptiste in the 100m sprint as well as the 4x100m relays.

Baptiste warmed up for the event with a gold medal performance at the Palio della Quercia meet in Italy on Tuesday. The former NCAA 100m champion sped home in 11.13 seconds just ahead of American Mikele Barber who crossed in 11.17. Gloria Asumnu also of the USA claimed the bronze with a time of 11.28.