BATON ROUGE – While this year’s U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials are already underway in Eugene, Ore., seven current and former Tigers and Lady Tigers look to qualify for Trinidad & Tobago’s Olympic team this weekend as the 2012 Sagicor National Open Track & Field Championship will be held Saturday at Sunday at Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port-of-Spain.
Headlining the competition are a trio of 2008 Olympians from Beijing as two-time Olympic silver medalist Richard Thompson, 2011 World Championships bronze medalist Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Semoy Hackett look to wear their nation’s red and black in London, England, this summer.
Thompson enjoyed a breakout senior season at LSU as one of the world’s leading sprinters in 2008, while winning Olympic silver medals in both the 100-meter dash and 4×100-meter relay in Beijing.
Thompson is the three-time defending 100-meter champion at the Sagicor National Open Championships, which includes his victory a year ago in which he smashed the Trinidad & Tobago national record with an impressive run of 9.85 for a new personal best in the championship final. Thompson will also be lining up in the 200-meter dash this weekend as he looks to qualify for the Olympic Games in both sprints.
Baptiste is a gold-medal contender in the women’s 100 meters at the London Olympics as she ranks No. 2 in the world for the 2012 season with her seasonal best of 10.86.
The reigning World Championships bronze medalist advanced to the semifinals for her first appearance in the 100-meter dash at the Olympic Games in 2008. Baptiste will also line up in the 200 meters in Trinidad & Tobago this weekend as she is still in search of a wind-legal Olympics qualifier in the event.
Hackett is already set to compete at the Olympic Games after eclipsing the “A” qualifying standard in the 200-meter dash with a 2012 seasonal best of 22.55 seconds set in the NCAA quarterfinals. She is slated to run only the 100-meter dash at the Sagicor National Open Championships this weekend.
Hackett wrapped up her collegiate career just two weeks ago by helping lead the Lady Tigers to a national championship as the NCAA bronze medalist in the 100 meters and fifth-place finisher nationally in the 200 meters. Hackett has already eclipsed the Olympic “A” qualifying standard in both sprints with her top wind-legal times of 11.10 in the 100 meters and 22.55 in the 200 meters.
The Tigers feature three All-Americans from the 2012 season in the competition this weekend as sprinters Ade Alleyne-Forte and Shermund Allsop join horizontal jumper Kyron Blaise at the meet.
Blaise ended his collegiate career as the top scoring Tiger at the 2012 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships while earning All-America honors in both the long jump and triple jump this season at LSU. Blaise owns PRs of 25-11 ½ in the long jump and 54-1 ¼ in the triple jump as he looks to jump at least the Olympic “B” qualifying standards of 26-7 in the long jump and 55-3 ½ in the triple jump.
Alleyne-Forte hopes to position himself for a spot in Trinidad’s 4×400-meter relay pool in the wake of his senior season in which he ran a career-best 44.8-second split on LSU’s relay team that took third place for its performance at the NCAA Championships while running a seasonal best of 3:01.21.
Allsop has shown dramatic improvement in his performance as a sophomore in 2012 while setting PRs of 10.38 in the 100 meters and 20.71 in the 200 meters in the NCAA quarterfinals.
Allsop also anchored the Tigers to their eighth national championship all-time in the 4×100-meter relay as he teamed with senior Barrett Nugent, freshman Aaron Ernest and senior Keyth Talley to record the third-fastest time in school history and seventh-fastest time in NCAA history at 38.38 in the final.
In addition, former Tiger All-American Jamaal James will line up in the men’s 800-meter run this week at the Sagicor National Open Championships as a favorite to take the title. James ran a personal record in his last 800-meter race with a time of 1 minute, 46.88 seconds in a meet held in Westchester, Pa. He is still in search of at least the Olympic “B” qualifying time of 1:46.30 in the 800 as he runs this weekend.