T&T’s Jereem “The Dream” Richards sprint­ed to a sil­ver medal in the men’s 200 me­tres long sprints cam­paign to fol­low up on his bronze medal in the men’s long sprint 400 me­tres event on Sat­ur­day, at the third stop of the Grand Slam Track, the glob­al home of pro­fes­sion­al track com­pe­ti­tion launched by four-time Olympic cham­pi­on Michael John­son, end­ed on Sun­day.

Richards got to the fin­ish line at the his­toric Franklin Field on the cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, USA, in 20.34 sec­onds, to trail Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Alexan­der Ogan­do, who led from start to fin­ish in 20.13, while vet­er­an Ba­hami­an Steven Gar­diner snatched third spot in 20.49 ahead of Zam­bian Muza­la Samukon­ga, who got home in 20.56, with 400m win­ner Matthew Hud­son-Smith of Great Britain fifth in 20.70.

The trio of the USA’s Khaleb McRae (20.87), his coun­try­man Matthew Bol­ing (20.87) and Ja­maican Je­vaughn Pow­ell (20.91) were the oth­er fin­ish­ers. All un­der 21 sec­onds.

On Sat­ur­day, Richards and mul­ti­ple Olympic medal win­ner Matthew Hud­son-Smith went out quick­ly from the field and were neck-and-neck for the first 200m.

How­ev­er, on the fi­nal bend for the home stretch, the Eu­ro­pean cham­pi­on be­gan to pull away and coast­ed to the win in 44.51 sec­onds, with the fast-fin­ish­ing USA’s McRae (45.04) pip­ping Richards (45.05) across the line.

The oth­er fin­ish­ers were Samukon­ga (45.16), Bol­ing (45.21), Ogan­do (45.87), Pow­ell (46.08) and Gar­diner (46.88).

With a com­bined 14 points from the two events, Richards was third over­all in the points ta­ble, trail­ing Hud­son-Smith (16) and Ogan­do (15).

And fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the third stop of the Grand Slam Track, Richards is third on the points ta­ble as well, be­hind Al­i­son dos San­tos of Brazil and the USA’s Ken­ny Bednarek.

At the start of last month, Richards, the 2017 world cham­pi­onship bronze medal­list, won the men’s 200m long sprints fi­nal and al­so had a sec­ond-place fin­ish in the men’s 400m fi­nal on the sec­ond day of the Grand Slam Track at the Ansin Sports Com­plex, Mi­ra­mar, Flori­da.

The 2022 in­door 400m world cham­pi­on Richards raced to vic­to­ry in the men’s Long Sprints 200m on the first day of the sec­ond stop of the Grand Slam Track event in a world-lead­ing time of 19.86 sec­onds, as on­ly the pho­to fin­ish sep­a­rat­ed him from Ogan­do, via a mi­cro­scop­ic 0.002 sec­onds in the T&T sprint­er’s favour.

Samukon­ga took the bronze in 20.23 with Gar­diner fourth in a sea­son-best 20.37, fol­lowed by Ryan Zeze (20.43), Ja­co­ry Pat­ter­son (20.55), Hud­son-Smith (20.64), a sea­son-best as well, and Byce Dead­mon, eighth in 21.01.

Pat­ter­son won the 400m in 43.08 sec­onds, fol­lowed by Richards in 44.32, while Matthew Hud­son-Smith was third in 44.37.

Samukon­ga was fourth in 44.56, fol­lowed by Ogan­do (44.78), Zeze (45.21), and Bryce Dead­mon (45.52), while Gar­diner, the Olympic cham­pi­on in the 200m, failed to fin­ish af­ter pulling up af­ter the 200m mark.

When the se­ries be­gan in April in Kingston, Ja­maica, Richards was sev­enth in the 400m in 45.35 but had a much-im­proved sec­ond-place fin­ish in the men’s 200m in 20.81 to trail Hud­son-Smith, who won in 20.77, while Ja­maican Dean­rde Watkins claimed third in 20.91.

USA’s Christo­pher Bai­ley ran 44.34 sec­onds for the top spot in the 400m ahead of Hud­son-Smith’s 44.65, with the USA’s Ver­non Nor­wood, third in 44.70. The fourth and fi­nal leg of the Grand Slam is card­ed for Los An­ge­les next month.