Jereem Richards will con­tin­ue his quest for gold at the World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships when he com­petes in the 400 me­tres semi­fi­nal round at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, Tokyo, Japan, Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 16) at 8.35 am (T&T time).

Richards will start in lane six of the sec­ond semi­fi­nal race and will be out to fin­ish in the top two spots to qual­i­fy for Thurs­day's (Sep­tem­ber 18) fi­nal. He is in ar­guably the tough­est of the three semi­fi­nals.

The na­tion­al record-hold­er (43.78 sec­onds) will line against this year's Amer­i­can and Di­a­mond League fi­nal cham­pi­on Ja­co­ry Pat­ter­son, Ja­maican record-hold­er Rusheen Mc­Don­ald, for­mer World Un­der-20 gold medal­list and this year's World Uni­ver­si­ty Games win­ner South African Lythe Pil­lay, 2024 Di­a­mond League fi­nal vic­tor Charles Dob­son of Great Britain and Botswana's Bu­sang Ke­bi­nat­shipi, who was a mem­ber of his coun­try's quar­tet which won the 2024 World Re­lays men's 4x400m ti­tle and sil­ver at Paris Olympics Games.

Pat­ter­son was the quick­est in Sun­day's heats, scorch­ing to 43.90 and will start in lane one, in­side of Richards. Mc­Don­ald, with a Ja­maican record of 43.93, will be in lane sev­en while Pil­lay is in lane eight, Dob­son is in lane four and Ke­bi­nat­shipi is in lane three. Ital­ian Edoar­do Scot­ti (lane nine) and Rok Fer­lan of Slove­nia (lane two) com­plete the line-up.

Richards, the 2022 World In­door 400m and the 2018/2022 Com­mon­wealth Games 200m gold medal­list, won his pre­lim­i­nary heat in 44.64 ahead of Pil­lay (44.73) and Dob­son (44.85).

World leader South Africa's Za­kithi Nene and reign­ing World In­door cham­pi­on Christo­pher Bai­ley of the USA are those to watch in the first semi­fi­nal. In the pre­lim­i­nary round, Nene won heat five with 44.34 while Bai­ley (44.49) tri­umphed in heat four. Nene's world-lead­ing time is 43.76.

Aus­tralian Re­ece Hold­er, whose fa­ther Ja­son Hold­er hails from La Hor­quet­ta, is list­ed in lane eight. In the third semi­fi­nal, for­mer Olympic and World Cham­pi­on Ki­rani James of Grena­da will run out of lane four. James, who won the 2011 World ti­tle at 19 years of age and Olympic gold one year lat­er, faces 2024 Olympic sil­ver and bronze medal­lists Matthew Hud­son Smith (Great Britain) and Muza­la Samukon­ga (Zam­bia), as well as Amer­i­cans Khaleb Mcrae and Ver­non Nor­wood.

T&T's Lon­don Olympic cham­pi­on Keshorn Wal­cott will go in­to ac­tion in the qual­i­fy­ing round of the men's javelin at 6.10 to­mor­row (Wednes­day) morn­ing. The fi­nal is set for Thurs­day.

Leah Bertrand will seek to re­bound from her first-round ex­it in the women's 100m when she com­petes in the 200m heats short­ly af­ter Wal­cott at 6.30 am. The women's 200m semi­fi­nal round is sched­uled for to­mor­row (Wednes­day) with the fi­nal on Thurs­day (Spetm­ber 18).

Bertrand was fourth in heat six in the first round of women's 100m in 11.29 and missed out on a place in the semi­fi­nal.

Tyra Git­tens-Spotsville fin­ished down the field in the women's long jump qual­i­fy­ing round with 6.05m. She placed 32nd over­all.