T&T's newest sub-11 sprint queen Leah Bertrand will con­test the women's 100 me­tre and 200m fi­nals in Sat­ur­day, the fi­nal day of the Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NCAA) Di­vi­sion One Out­door Cham­pi­onships at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon in Eu­gene, Ore­gon, USA.

Bertrand ad­vanced to the fi­nals of both sprints with im­pres­sive per­for­mances in the semi­fi­nal round on Thurs­day. In the 100m semi­fi­nals, the Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty (OSU) fi­nal-year stu­dent was third-quick­est in 10.91 sec­onds. The Sim­plex club mem­ber won the sec­ond semi­fi­nal race with the fastest time of her ca­reer.

How­ev­er, the wind read­ing was +2.2m per sec­ond (m/s), just over the al­low­able le­gal lim­it of +2.0. Nonethe­less, the sub-11 run was the fourth for Bertrand. The 22-year-old first ducked un­der the 11-sec­ond mark with 10.94 (+3.9) at the Texas Re­lays on March 29 and then sped to a per­son­al best (pb) time of 10.92 in the first round of the East Re­gion­als in Flori­da on May 29. The Paris Olympics semi­fi­nal­ist fol­lowed up with 10.99 in the quar­ter­fi­nal round in Flori­da two days lat­er.

Her Eu­gene sub-11 clock­ing was one of six in the semi­fi­nal round with Ba­hami­an An­thaya Charl­ton of Flori­da first blaz­ing to a 10.87 (+1.4) pb to win the first semi­fi­nal race be­fore Bertrand with her 10.91. USA's Ja Meesia Ford (South Car­oli­na) laid her claim as a medal con­tender by speed­ing to 10.87 (1.4).

Niger­ian Tina God­b­less of Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty (LSU), 10.91 and the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia (USC) duo of Simarah Moody and Da­jaz De­frand both reg­is­tered 10.93, are the oth­er 10-point per­form­ers ad­vanc­ing to to­day's fi­nals set for 6.62 pm (9.53 pm TT time). An­oth­er USC sprint­er Bri­ana Sel­by (11.01) and Ja­maican Shenese Walk­er (11.06) are al­so among the starters. With the depth of the qual­i­ty in the field the race for the ti­tle is wide-open and ooz­ing with class. The T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) "Sports­woman of the Year" for 2024 will be seek­ing to im­prove on her sev­enth-place fin­ish in last year's fi­nals and al­so be­come the first T&T sprint­er since Kel­ly-Ann Bap­tiste in 2008 to win the NCAA women's100m crown. Bap­tiste, who at­tend­ed LSU, won in 11.20.

Af­ter seek­ing her lane in the 100m ti­tle race, Bertrand re­turned to the track one hour lat­er and booked her spot in the 200m fi­nal with a pb run of 22.54 (+0.7), the sixth-best in the semi­fi­nal round. The AS­JA Girls Col­lege grad­u­ate slashed 0.17 sec­onds off her pre­vi­ous best of 22.71 set at the East Re­gion­als on May 31.

With 22.54 time, Bertrand is now third on the T&T Women all-time list­ing be­hind na­tion­al record hold­er Michelle-Lee Ahye (22.24) and Se­moy Hack­ett (22.51) and ahead of Bap­tiste (22.60).

She has at­tained the qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard for the event (22.57) for this year's World Out­door Cham­pi­onships in Tokyo, Japan (Sep­tem­ber 13-21). She dipped un­der the World Champs 11.07 100m stan­dard with her 10.92 and 10.99 runs at the East Re­gion­als.

The two-time reign­ing na­tion­al 100m cham­pi­on was go­ing for a third fi­nal spot in the women's 4x100m but she and her Ohio State team­mates were 11th in the semi­fi­nal round in 43.32. On­ly the top nine ad­vanced to the fi­nal. San­na Fred­er­ick and Geor­gia al­so com­pet­ed but were dis­qual­i­fied.

Teenag­er Janae De Gannes (Con­corde) was 12th in the women's long jumps fi­nal with a dis­tance of 6.18m. The 18-year-old Bay­lor Uni­ver­si­ty first-year stu­dent opened her com­pe­ti­tion with a foul jump be­fore get­ting out to 5.81 and 6.18. How­ev­er, her top dis­tance was not enough to earn her three more at­tempts to re­main in con­tention for the ti­tle. The 2024 World U-20 Cham­pi­onships fi­nal­ist was aim­ing to im­prove on her na­tion­al U-20 record of 6.58 es­tab­lished at the West Re­gion­als on May 29.

Syn­clair Sav­age (Louisville) won the gold (6.72) ahead of Stan­ford's Alyssa Jones (6.70) and Alex­ia Brown of Bay­lor (6.63).

On Fri­day, Devin Au­gus­tine and Keon Ben­jamin were sched­uled to be in ac­tion in the men's 4x100m fi­nals with Min­neso­ta. In the semi­fi­nal stage on Wednes­day Min­neso­ta was fourth in 38.16.

Kelsey Daniel (Texas) was to al­so con­test the men's triple jump fi­nals. Daniel es­tab­lished a new pb of 16.34m at the West Re­gion­als in Texas on May 31. Christo­pher Craw­ford (Al­aba­ma) al­so was among the field in the men's dis­cus fi­nals. The na­tion­al record-hold­er was 12th in the shot put fi­nal on Wednes­day.

Re­sults of T&T Ath­letes

Day Two (June 12)

Women

100m semi­fi­nals

3 (1st heat 2) Leah Bertrand (Ohio State) 10.91(+2.2 m/s)

200m semi­fi­nals

6 (3rd heat 3) Bertrand 22.54 (+07m/s)

4x100m semi­fi­nals

10 (4th heat 3) Bay­lor 43.17

11 (5th heat 3) Ohio State (Bertrand) 43.32

Dq Geor­gia (Sanaa Fred­er­ick)

Long jump fi­nals

12 Janae De De Gannes (Bay­lor) 6.18m (+2.3 m/s).....(x, 5.81, 6.18)j

Day One (June 11)

Men

Shot put fi­nals

12 Christo­pher Craw­ford (Kaizen Pan­thers/Al­aba­ma) 18.94 (18.92, 18.94, 18.58)

4x100m Semi­fi­nals

1 Auburn 37.97, 2-South Flori­da 38.12, 3-LSU 38.14, 4-(2nd heat 2) MIN­NESO­TA (Kion Ben­jamin/Mem­phis Pi­o­neers, Devin Au­gus­tine/Pt Fortin­New Jets) 38.16, 14th (3rd heat 1) Arkansas-Pine Bluff (Avin­dale Smith/Abi­lene Wild­cats) 39.23

4x400m semi­fi­nal

11 (5th heat 3) LSU (Shaa­keem Mc Kay/Abi­lene Wild­cats) 3:04.01