Aug. 19, 2009
BERLIN, GERMANY - After producing a crew of qualifiers for the semifinals at the IAAF World Championships, a pair of sprinters with ties to Texas A&M - Wallace Spearmon and Tabarie Henry - advanced to finals of the men's 200 and men's 400 on the fifth day of the meet.
Meanwhile, two more sprinters advanced to the semifinals of the women's 200 with Simone Facey and Muna Lee each winning a heat in today's quarterfinals. They became the seventh and eighth sprinters with Aggie ties to qualify for the semifinal round.
The next Texas A&M athlete to see action at Olympic Stadium will be Fabrice Lapierre in Thursday's long jump qualifying.
Henry, an Aggie junior this fall, was the first Aggie finalist as he placed second in the third of three semifinal heats with a time of 44.97 seconds. Representing the U.S. Virgin Islands, Henry improves upon the semifinal stage he reached at the Beijing Olympics last summer.
Chris Brown of Bahamas finished ahead of Henry with a 44.95 clocking. Other heat winners included 2008 Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt (44.37) and 2007 World champion Jeremy Wariner (44.69). Merritt's time established the world leading mark for this season.
Henry will occupy lane 7 in Friday's final of the 400 meters with Wariner in lane 6. The race is scheduled to start 2:20 p.m. local time and will be broadcast on Versus live as well as online via www.universalsports.com.
Spearmon, a volunteer assistant coach with the Aggies, led the field in his semifinal heat of the 200, clocking 20.14 to finish ahead of Jamaican Steve Mullings (20.26) and American Charles Clark (20.27), the NCAA champion from Florida State. The other semifinal was claimed by Usain Bolt in 20.08 with Panama's Alonso Edward second in 20.22 and former Olympic champion Shawn Crawford (20.35) taking third.
Thursday's final in the 200, which will be run at 1:35 p.m. local time, has Spearmon in lane 4 between a pair of Jamaicans with Mullings in lane 3 and Bolt in lane 5.
Facey, the 2008 NCAA 200 champion who graduated from Texas A&M this summer, claimed the first heat of the women's 200 with a time of 22.83 and Lee, another A&M volunteer assistant, followed with a 22.76 victory in the next heat. Those times were the fourth and fifth best among a field of 44 entrants. The top time of 22.51 was recorded by American Marshevet Hooker.
Both Facey and Lee advance to Thursday's three heat semifinal and will run in adjacent lanes in the last heat. Lee is stationed in lane 4 with Facey in lane 5. Also in the third heat is a pair of former NCAA foes in Virgil Hodge of St. Kitts (TCU) and Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad (LSU).
A twisted ankle during warm-up hampered Aries Merritt in the first round of the 110-meter hurdles. Merritt, a volunteer assistant with the Aggies, ran 13.70 for fourth place in his heat and didn't advance on time.