MONTGOMERY, Alabama – World and Olympic 400 metres champion Kirani James will open his 2013 season in The Bahamas this weekend.
The Grenadian, who created history by winning his country’s first ever medal at the London Olympics last summer, confirmed his participation in the Bahamas Invitational scheduled for next week Saturday.
The meet at the Thomas Robinson National Stadium also includes other Olympians – among them Veronica Campbell-Brown, Kellie Wells, Trevor Barry and Demetrius Pinder.
“Training over the winter has been good and consistent,” said James, a part time student at the University of Alabama. “I’d say I’m in good form, but we’ll find out for sure at the Chris Brown Bahamas Invitational, which is my first race of 2013.”
“I’m just getting ready for that at the moment, and we’ve been working on everything – conditioning, stride length, speed.”
James has also announced that he will compete in an All-Star 4×400 metres team at the Penn Relays on April 27.
The team will also include Lalonde Gordon of Trinidad and Tobago, the 400 metres bronze medallist at the London Olympics.
“Last year I managed to break 45 seconds in all of my finals. I’d like to do the same again this year, but we’ll just have to wait and see what shape I’m in,” James said.
“My first race is always a kind of ‘let’s-see-where-I’m-at’ race. It’s really like a warm-up meet, and after that race my coach and I will go back to the drawing board and look at where I can improve.”
Since 2008, James has won Commonwealth Youth gold, World Youth gold, the World Juniors, World Championships and Olympic gold.
His Olympic victory in 43.94 seconds made him the eighth-fastest man in history in the one-lap event. (CMC)
