The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

WITH the international track and field season winding down, sprinter Anthonique Strachan got in one more competition as she competed at the Memorial Borisa Hanzekovica on Tuesday at the Sports Park Mladost in Zagreb, Croatia.

Competing along with her training partners from Jamaica, Strachan picked up a third place finish in a time of 23.05 seconds. The race was won by 18-year-old Christine Mboma of Namibia in 22.04 with 27-year-old Shericka Jackson of Jamaica taking second in 22.30.

Strachan, who turned 28 on August 22, was the lone Bahamian competing in the two-day meet that got started on Monday. High jumper Donald Thomas was the last Bahamian to compete in the latest meets, finishing sixth last week at the Wanda Diamond League Final in Zurich with a leap of 7-feet, 4 1/4-inches or 2.24 metres.

The Diamond League Final is the culmination of a series of 14 of the best invitational athletics meetings around the world. Athletes generate points in order to qualify in their various disciplines at the end of the competition.

The Diamond League, which got started in 2010, began this year in Gateshead, Great Britain on May 23. It followed with events in Doha (May 28th), Rome (June 10th), Oslo (July 1st), Stockholm (July 4th), Monaco (July 9th), London (July 13th), Eugene, Oregon (August 21st), Lausanne, Switzerland (August 26th), Paris, France (August 28th) and Brussels, Belgium (September 3rd).

At the Wanda Diamond League Final, Mboma pulled off the victory in the women’s 200m in a meet and area record time of 21.78 with Jackson second in a personal best of 21.82. Great Britain’s Dana Asher-Smith was third in 22.19.

Strachan was ineligible to compete in the Wanda Diamond League Final as she had not competed in the previous meets to secure sufficient points to qualify.

However, Strachan did get a chance to compete against her rivals at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games where she didn’t advance out of the semi-finals and was 11th overall in a season’s best of 22.56.

Mboma went on to win the silver medal in 21.81 behind Jamaican Elaine Thompson-Herah, who completed the sprint double by adding the 200m in a national record of 21.53 to her crown in the 100m. American Gabrielle Thomas won the bronze in 21.87.

Strachan is a training partner of Thompson-Herah and Jackson in the MVP Maximising Velocity and Power Track & Field Club MVP Track Club in Jamaica that was founded in September 1999 by Stephen and Paul Francis, David Noel and Bruce James.