Trinidad and Tobago’s men’s 4x400m team crashes out of Olympic semis

Trinidad and Tobago’s quartet of Renny Quow, Jaden Marchan, Shakeem McKay and new 400-metre national record-holder Jereem Richards crashed out of the qualifying rounds of the men’s 4x400m relay on August 9 after finishing last in semifinal one at the Stade de France in a time of three minutes, 6.73 seconds (3:06.73).

Running out of lane nine, TT were led off on the first leg by 36-year-old veteran Renny Quow. The TT team were well behind the field after the first leg, though, with Quow’s first-leg clocking of 48.70 seconds seeing him handing over the baton to Richards in eighth place.

On August 7, Richards finished an agonising fourth in the men’s 400m final in 43.78 seconds, taking 0.23 seconds off of Machel Cedenio’s national record from the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Richards could do little to make up the stagger on the rest of the field, and TT’s fate had already been sealed by the time anchor runner McKay received the baton from 18-year-old Jaden Marchan.

TT eventually finished more than five seconds behind the seventh-placed Polish team who ran 3:01.21.

Less than 24 hours after copping the gold medal in an exciting 200m final on August 8, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo ran an excellent first leg and helped his team to win the first semi in a season’s best time of 2:57.76.

The first five teams from semifinal one advanced to the final, with Great Britain (2:58.88), USA (2:59.15), Japan (2:59.48) and Zambia (3:00.08) all joining Botswana for the August 10 showdown.

The hosts France (2:59.53) won the second semifinal, with Nigeria (2:59.81) and Belgium (2:59.84) set to join them in the final.

On August 8, the TT 4X100m women’s quartet of Akilah Lewis, Leah Bertrand and twin sisters Sanaa and Sole Frederick were also knocked out from finals contention after bringing up the rear in semifinal two in 43.99 seconds.

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