First World Champs for Jamaica’s three women 100m hurdlers
MOSCOW, Russia — All three Jamaican women in the sprint hurdles Friday morning — sisters Danielle and Shermaine Williams, and Andrea Bliss — will be running at the World Championships for the first time.
Lining up in the heats 12:45am they have a far way to go to replicate the feat of Brigette Foster-Hylton who won gold in Berlin as well as Deloreen Ennis London and Michelle Freeman who were also medal winners.
Shermaine who just missed the finals at the London Olympic Games last year is a World Junior Championships silver medallist back in 2008 in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Her younger sister Danielle who just missed a medal at the 2010 World Juniors in Moncton, Canada has had the best season of all three, winning at the JAAA National Trials in June running her personal best 12.69 seconds.
Danielle runs in the third heat where she faces American Queen Harrison after Bliss faces World and Olympic champion Sally Pearson of Australia who looks to be rounding into form late in the season.
Shermaine will run in heat number five.
The first four in each of the five heats, and the four fastest losers progress to the semi finals at 9:20am Saturday.
Meanwhile, Jamaican women who won a silver two years ago in Daegu, will seek to qualify for the finals of the 4x400m relay and the team to include Christine Day, Kaliese Spencer, Rosemarie Whyte and Annastacia Leroy will race against Russia, Belarus, Great Britain, France and India for a place in Saturday’s final.
It is expected that 400m finalists Stephenie McPherson and Novlene Williams Mills will come in for the finals.