BATON ROUGE — Now that the collegiate season has come to an end, LSU’s track and field athletes will chase their Olympic dreams starting this weekend as four athletes travel back home to Trinidad and Tobago to compete in their country’s Olympic Trials beginning Friday.
The Sagicor National Open Track and Field Championships return to Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain as the three-day meet will run through Sunday.
Senior Richard Thompson, senior Kelly Baptiste, junior Monique Cabral and sophomore Jamaal James will each line up this weekend looking to wear the red and black of Trinidad and Tobago at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, from Aug. 15-24.
The top three finishers in each event at the Sagicor National Open Championships that have met the “A” qualifying standard for the Olympic Games will make the trip to Beijing, and the “A” qualifying standard in the 100 meters is 10.21 seconds for men and 11.32 for women. In addition, a top six finish will place an athlete in the 4×100-meter relay pool for the Olympics.
Thompson and Baptiste have already met the Olympic “A” qualifying standard after wrapping up their illustrious LSU careers as NCAA champions in the 100-meter dash with thrilling victories at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, on June 13.
The duo made history by becoming the first male and female athletes from the same university to sweep 100-meter titles at the NCAA Championships in the same season.
They also became the first athletes from the same school to sweep 60-meter titles at the NCAA Indoor Championships to give LSU all four national titles in both short sprints for the first time in the history of collegiate track and field.
Thompson enters the meet with the third-fastest 100-meter time in the world this season as he ran a blistering 9.93 to beat a stacked field in the final at the SEC Outdoor Championships on May 18. His time is not only an LSU school record, but it also ranks No. 2 in collegiate history behind the mark of 9.92 set by UCLA’s Ato Boldon at the NCAA Championships in 1996.
Baptiste’s seasonal best wind-legal time of 11.06 that she set at the Texas Relays on April 5 ranks No. 11 in the world and is the women’s national record for Trinidad and Tobago. She also boasts a top wind-aided time of 10.97 that she recorded at the NCAA Mideast Regional on May 31.
Cabral, who was an NCAA Regional participant in both the 100 meters and 200 meters this year, will line up in Friday’s prelim looking to improve her seasonal best wind-legal time of 11.76.
While Thompson, Baptiste and Cabral will each run the 100 meters this weekend, James will line up in the 800 meters looking to finish in the top three in the event and improve upon his seasonal best time of 1 minute, 47.91 seconds that he clocked at the SEC Outdoor Championships on May 18. The Olympic “A” qualifying standard in the men’s 800-meter run is 1:46.00.
The preliminary rounds of the men’s and women’s 100-meter dash and the men’s 800-meter run at the Sagicor National Open Championships are scheduled for Friday afternoon, while the finals of the 100 meters is set to run on Saturday followed by the final of the 800 meters on Sunday.
Be sure to log on to www.LSUsports.net for daily updates as four of LSU’s student-athletes look to become the first this year to qualify for the Olympic Games.