BATON ROUGE – Two of the world’s leading sprinters were in action this weekend at the Sagicor National Track & Field Championships in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, as LSU greats Richard Thompson and Kelly Baptiste returned to their home country Saturday to defend their 100-meter titles from a year ago.
And for the second-straight season, the duo swept the men’s and women’s 100-meter crowns for the meet held annually at Hasely Crawford Stadium in Trinidad & Tobago’s capital city.
Thompson defended his gold medal by running a wind-legal seasonal best of 10.01 seconds in the final on Saturday night as he is now tied as the No. 8-ranked 100-meter runner in the world this season. He won in a close race with Keston Bledman (10.03), while Emmanuel Callender took home the bronze in 10.14.
Thompson has shown tremendous form this season as he has broken 10 seconds on two occasions running in windy conditions. He recorded a wind-aided time of 9.90 in a runner-up finish at the Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway, on June 4 before capturing the 100-meter title at the IAAF Diamond League meeting at the adidas Grand Prix in New York the following week on June 12.
While Thompson has been impressive this season, Baptiste has outshined her fellow countryman with her performance in 2010 as she is currently the world’s leading 100-meter sprinter on the women’s side while boasting a personal best and seasonal best of 10.84 that she set on June 5.
Baptiste cruised to victory in the women’s final Saturday at the Sagicor National Championships with the winning time of 10.98, followed by Semoy Hackett (11.27) and Ayanna Hutchinson (11.37).
In fact, Baptiste has now won the women’s 100-meter title at the Sagicor National Championships in each of the past three seasons and five of the last six seasons overall going back to the 2005 campaign.
In other action, Lady Tiger senior Samantha Henry won the bronze medal in the women’s 100-meter dash during Saturday’s competition at the Jamaican National Senior Championships in Kingston after clocking a time of 11.29 in the final. She qualified with the third-fastest preliminary time at 11.53.