The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

GLASGOW, Scotland — After watching Jeffery Gibson earn a bronze in the men’s 400 metres hurdles, LaToy Williams said the men’s 4 x 400 metre relay team wanted to make sure that they were not left off the podium - again - at the 20th Commonwealth Games.

The quartet of Williams, Michael Mathieu, Alonzo Russell and Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown ran three minutes and 00.51 seconds for the silver behind England, the gold medallists in 3:00.46 and ahead of bronze medallists Trinidad & Tobago in 3:01.51.

The rise to the podium erased the painful memory of the last games in 2010 in New Delhi, India, when the team of La’Sean Pickstock, Mathieu, Jamal Moss and Ramon Miller came up just shy of a medal with a fourth place finish.

“It’s good to bring home something,” said Williams, who also remembers how he missed out on the opportunity to medal in the 400m when he placed fifth overall in 45.44.

“Jeffery was the lone ranger on the track team, but now he has four more team-mates to add to the medal count, so I’m just happy that we came out there and ran a clean race with all of us being healthy to bring home the silver.”

Like he did in the 400m, Williams, a former student of South Plains College and Texas Tech University, said he was blind sighted by what was going on during the middle of the track, but he still managed to pop it off in a split of 45.7 to give the baton to Mathieu in third place.

“I feel pretty good about it. This was my fourth day running, so I was just glad that we came home with a medal,” said Mathieu, the 30-year-old Texas Tech University and St George’s standout from Grand Bahama, whose split of 45.1 kept the Bahamas in contention.

“We were pretty close to winning the race, but it was cold out there and there was some bad weather, so I’m just glad that at least we came home with something.”

As the rookie of the squad, Grand Bahamian Russell, via Florida State, produced a 45.16 split on the third leg as he put the Bahamas in striking distance for Brown to take over.

“It was a great opportunity to be a part of this team,” said Russell, who didn’t compete in an individual event. “It was a good run out there. I just wanted to close it in and give it to Chris, so that we could win the gold. The silver is cool.”

On the anchor, the Bahamas was sitting in third and Brown, recuperating from a stomach virus that forced him to skip the 400m final, produced a scorching split of 44.39.

Brown, the veteran member of the team at 34, came within a whisker of pulling off the victory, but England’s Matthew Hudson-Smith held on for the win.

“In all and all, I give God thanks. Four years ago, my team-mates didn’t have anything,” Brown said. “We were on a mission this year to come here and to go home with a medal. I told my team-mates to just come out and do the best that you could do and just hope for the best. We wanted that gold, but it didn’t work out that way. In all things, I give my team-mates a lot of props for coming out here and running the way they did, considering the conditions and the fact that we were not all 100 per cent, including myself.”

Brown, a native from Eleuthera who attended RM Bailey and Norfolk State University, praised Russell for stepping up and taking on the challenge to perform as he did.

“It just shows that we have a lot of quarter-milers in the pipeline and we look forward to what the future holds.”

With the gold in sight, Brown said he desperately tried to reel in the Englishman, but he didn’t have enough real estate left.

“When you have a guy that is running so relaxed, you have to put in a lot of work to catch them up,” Brown said. “By the time I went in full gear to catch him, the guy was already in his strides. I came back and closed it in, but I have to give them a lot of props. They did what they had to do to win.”

Brown, nearing the end of a long and illustrious career, assured the Bahamian public that the loss will only inspire all of the quarter-milers to ensure that the Bahamas gets back on top of their rivals.