LONDON – Former Lady Tiger star Samantha Henry-Robinson and Tiger senior Ade Alleyne-Forte certainly made the most of their Olympics debut while claiming relay medals with their respective nations during Friday’s championship finals held at London’s Olympic Stadium.
Henry-Robinson captured an Olympics silver medal as a member of Jamaica’s vaunted 4×100-meter relay that set a national record in the women’s final, while Alleyne-Forte helped Trinidad & Tobago clock a national record of its own in the 4×400-meter relay in winning a bronze medal in Friday’s finale.
Alleyne-Forte lined up as the third leg for Trinidad & Tobago in the men’s mile relay as he teamed with a squad that also featured Lalonde Gordon, Jarrin Solomon and Deon Lendore.
Gordon, the Olympics 400-meter bronze medalist, opened with an unofficial split of 44.87 seconds before giving way to Solomon with an unofficial 44.21-second split on the second leg to put Trinidad & Tobago in the race for the medal podium. Alleyne-Forte then took the baton from Solomon and held the third spot with an unofficial run of 45.44, before Lendore held off a hard-charging Martyn Rooney on the anchor for Great Britain to bring home the bronze medal with his unofficial 44.88 on the final lap.
Trinidad & Tobago shattered the national record of 3:00.38 it set in Thursday’s preliminary round with an effort of 2:59.40 in Friday’s final to win only its second Olympics medal in the 4×400-meter relay.
The Caribbean nation also brought home a bronze medal at the 1964 Olympic Games held in Tokyo as Edwin Skinner, Kent Bernard, Edwin Roberts and Wendell Mottley were the first team to do so.
The Bahamas and United States battled one another for relay gold while running away from the rest of the field. The Bahamians won the gold medal with their winning time of 2:56.72 while becoming the third-fastest nation all-time in the event, while the Americans settled for silver with their run of 2:57.05.
With his effort, Alleyne-Forte became just the third LSU Tiger to medal in the men’s 4×400 relay all-time at the Olympic Games. He joins the likes of Tiger greats Derrick Brew and Kelly Willie, who each earned the gold medal with the winning team from the United States in Athens in 2004.
Henry-Robinson also added her name to LSU’s lineage at the Olympic Games as the silver medalist in the women’s 4×100-meter relay. She will receive her silver medal after leading off the Jamaican relay team in the qualifying round on Thursday night. While running with a squad of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Sherone Simpson, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Kerron Stewart, the Jamaicans set a national record of 41.41 for the final to finish runner-up to the world-record run of 40.82 by the United States.
Lady Tiger alums Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Semoy Hackett were among the medal contenders in the 4×100 relay while lining up in Friday’s final as half of the team from Trinidad & Tobago. But a missed exchange between Michelle-Lee Ahye and Baptiste on the first handoff doomed their medal hopes.
Members of the LSU Track & Field program have now claimed 16 medals at the modern Olympic Games with six gold medals, six silver medals and four bronze medals all-time.
Former Tiger star and reigning Olympic silver medalist Richard Thompson will have a chance to run for a second Olympic medal in the men’s 4×100-meter relay after guiding Trinidad & Tobago into Saturday’s final in the event. While leading off the squad that featured Marc Burns, Emmanuel Callender and Keston Bledman, the “Torpedo” helped his country run a seasonal best of 38.10 for third place in its heat.
Trinidad & Tobago grabbed the third and final automatic qualifying spot for the final in the second prelim heat while following the United States (37.38) and Japan (38.07) across the finish line. France (38.15) and Australia (38.17) advanced as timed qualifiers from the second qualifying heat.
Only the top three finishers from the first heat qualified for this year’s Olympics final in the men’s 4×100-meter relay as Jamaica (37.39), Canada (38.05) and the Netherlands (38.29) advanced.
After wrapping up the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing by anchoring his country to the silver medal in the sprint relay, Thompson looks to put an exclamation point onto the end of this year’s games for the LSU Track & Field program as the men’s 4×100-meter relay final will run Saturday at 3 p.m. CT.