CLAY­TON CLARKE

Sport Cor­re­spon­dent

Jereem Richards se­cured his spot in the World Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships men's 400 me­tres fi­nal af­ter he was third in his semi­fi­nal race at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Tokyo, Japan, yes­ter­day. Richards clocked a sea­son's best time of 44.12 sec­onds to ad­vance to the medal round.

He was hop­ing to fin­ish in the top two spots to be as­sured of a lane in Thurs­day's fi­nals. In­stead, he had to wait un­til the com­ple­tion of the third and fi­nal semi­fi­nal race to se­cure one of two fastest non-au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fy­ing spots.

Beat­ing him to the line were Bu­sang Ke­bi­nat­shipi of Botswana and Ja­maican Rusheen Mc Don­ald. Ke­bi­nat­shipi was first in the na­tion­al record and world-lead­ing time of 43.61, with Mc Don­ald next (44.04). Amer­i­can cham­pi­on Ja­co­ry Pat­ter­son was fourth in 44.19 and al­so ad­vanced to the fi­nal as a time qual­i­fi­er.

Start­ing in lane six, Richards was out con­ser­v­a­tive­ly as Pat­ter­son ran up on him in lane five along the back stretch. Ke­bi­nat­shipi took the lead com­ing off the fi­nal bend ahead of Mc Don­ald and Pat­ter­son with Richards in fourth. How­ev­er, the 2022 World In­door gold medal­list bat­tled back and ran past Pat­ter­son in the fi­nal 50m, out-dip­ping him on the line.

Aus­tralian Re­ece Hold­er, whose fa­ther Ja­son Hold­er hails from La Hor­quet­ta, was third in the first semi­fi­nal in 44.63. How­ev­er, Hold­er's time was not quick enough to earn him a lane in the fi­nal. South African Za­kithi Nene won (44.20) ahead of an­oth­er Botswana run­ner, Lee Ep­pie (44.51). Ep­pie's team­mate, Bayapo Ndori, took the third semi­fi­nal (44.21) with Japan­ese Yu­ki Naka­ji­ma sec­ond (44.53).

In the fi­nal set for 9.10 on Thurs­day morn­ing, Richards will start on the in­side lane (lane two) with Pat­ter­son, Ep­pie, Ke­bi­nat­shipi, Mc Don­ald, Nene, Ndori and Naka­ji­ma fol­low­ing in that or­der. The 2017 World Out­door Cham­pi­onships 4x400m gold medal­list will be look­ing to im­prove on his fourth place at the Paris Olympics Games last year and will be seek­ing to be­come the sec­ond lo­cal quar­ter mil­er to earn a medal at the World Out­door Cham­pi­onships fol­low­ing Ren­ny Quow's bronze in 2009.