MICHAEL NICHOLLS was near his best again, but it wasn’t quite good enough this time.
Barbados’ promising sprint hurdler had to settle for sixth yesterday after running an encouraging 13.45 seconds in the final of the 110 metres hurdles at the IAAF World Under-20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Running in lane one, Nicholls reacted quickly to the gun, but fell out of contention just as fast by unfortunately clipping the first hurdle.
American Marcus Krah stormed out to the front and never looked back to win the race in a personal best 13.25 seconds ahead of compatriot Amere Lattin (13.31) and Japan’s Takumu Furuya (13.31).
Jamaican favourite De’Jour Russell was fourth with 13.39 seconds.
It was an inspiring performance from Nicholls, who clocked then personal bests of 13.62 and 13.42 seconds to advance out of both the preliminaries and semi-finals, respectively.
And he wasn’t too far away from another career best effort in an extremely competitive final.
Earlier, gifted athlete Rivaldo Leacock kept Barbados in the hunt for more medals by advancing out of the preliminary rounds of the 400 metres hurdles.
Running in the last of seven heats, Leacock comfortably won his race in 51.62 seconds to beat out Maksims Sincukovs (52.04) of Latvia and China’s Debin Gong (52.11) and qualify for this afternoon’s semi-finals.
It was an otherwise ho-hum day for the Bajans, as 100 bronze medallist Mario Burke didn’t face the starter for the men’s 200 metres, while Kentone Browne failed to advance after placing seventh in his heat with 22.00 seconds in the same event.
Tristan Evelyn fell short of making the women’s 100 metres final by also placing seventh in the third of three semi-finals with a clocking of 11.84 seconds.
Sada Williams will start her quest for more 200 metres glory when she runs the preliminaries of that event at approximately 6:14 a.m. Barbados time before the men’s 4×100 relay squad take the track at 12:44 p.m. (JM)
