Wilson makes hurdles final, but compatriots fall by the wayside
MOSCOW, Russia — Nickiesha Wilson had to wait a few anxious moments after her 400m hurdles semi-finals on yesterday’s fourth day of the 14th IAAF World Championships at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow to find out if she had made it to her second final, after placing fifth in a season’s best 54.94 seconds.
At the end of the second semi-finals she could breathe a bit easier as she had just made it into Thursday’s medal round with the eighth best time, as one of the two fastest losers.
“I am very glad that I made it to the final, as I was very nervous, because I did not know what my time was and I waited and found out and I was very happy,” she told journalists.
Wilson, who is hoping to join Melaine Walker and Deon Hemmings as Jamaican medallists in the event, had an even longer wait as she had to wait six years to return to the final after placing fourth in her first World Championships in Osaka, Japan.
The news wasn’t as good for her teammate Ristananna Tracey or the three Jamaican men, however, as they crashed out of the event at the semi-final stage.
Tracey was fifth in her semi-final in 55.43 seconds, and for the second straight World Championships, failed to get to the final.
Annsert Whyte ran yet another personal best 49.17 seconds, while Leford Green (48.88 seconds) and Isa Phillips (49.28 seconds) both had season’s bests, but were not fast enough on the day.
Arguably the largest crowd of the championships, and certainly the loudest, many turned out yesterday afternoon, mostly to see Russian superstar Yelena Isinbaeva in the pole vault final. Event organisers announced that 143,368 paying spectators had watched the previous seven sessions, with 40,461 showing up Sunday afternoon at the venue than seats 43,000, to watch the men’s 100m final.
That number was the largest ever to watch a track and field event in Russia since the 1980 Olympic Games at the same venue.
Ironically, Wilson, who was based in Jamaica last year when she competed at the Olympic Games, had also finished fifth in her semi-final heat then, but had failed to advance to the final.
Yesterday, she conceded she could have run faster, especially during the third quarter of the race, saying she backed off after the third hurdle. “It was very hard to run from lane seven; the third 100 was hard going around the curve.”
She was, however, aware that given her time she could end up in the outside lane again in the final. “If I get it I will have to tough it out and might have to run another season’s best to get among the medals.”
Given the depth of the field led by the Czech Republic’s Zuzana Hejnova, who ran 53.52 seconds to qualify, Wilson was under no illusion how hard it would be to win a medal. “The final will be very competitive, I am not doubting that, but anything can happen in the race, so I am going out there with the mentality that I am going for a medal.”
In the men’s semi-finals, Annsert Whyte, who said he felt his hamstrings “grabbing” even before he came on the track, but was not going to miss his first senior global championships, got a personal best for his sacrifice while placing fourth in his semi-final.
Whyte, who took up the event just this season, after running the 400m for many years, said he was “surprised” at his success and will learn from the experience.
Leford Green just missed the automatic second place in his heat, placing third and said he was still learning the event, which he said was one of the hardest and most competitive.
Phillips was fifth in his first heat as four men from the Caribbean will line up in the final, one each from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic.
In the morning session, Olympic Games finalist Kimberly Williams took two jumps before getting the automatic qualifying mark of 14.30m with a jump of 14.36m (+0.4m/s) after getting 14.25m (-0.8m/s) earlier.
The Olympic Games finalist has the fourth best mark going into Thursday’s final behind Ukraine’s Olha Saladuha (14.69m), Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen (14.52m) and Israel’s Hanna Knyazyeva-Minenko, who got 14.46m on her final attempt after two fouls.
Williams had failed to get past the first round in her two previous World Championships, placing eighth in her group in Berlin in 2009 and then seventh in her group in Daegu, South Korea, two years ago.
She, however, made the breakthrough by making it to the final in the World Indoors in Turkey last year, before making it to the final at the Olympic Games in London, placing sixth after achieving her personal best 14.53m in the first round.