The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

LONDON. England: They had what was considered the “easiest” of the two heat, but the Bahamas men’s 4 x 400 metre relay team could not get out of the first round of the 16th IAAF World Championships.

When considering the fact that Spain won in season’s best of three minutes and 01.72 seconds, it was hard to imagine that the Bahamas team of Alonzo Russell, Michael Mathieu, Ojay Ferguson and Ramon Miller could muster a SB’s of 3:03.04 for sixth place, even trailing India, fifth place finishers in their SB’s of 3:02.80.

All things considered, one could only understand that this had to be an unusual championships for Team Bahamas. With all four relay teams entered, the reality set in when none of them made it to the final.

It was so disappointing that Russell had to recomposed himself when he came into the mixed zone to be interviewed by the media.

“It was okay. I did what I had to do. I put the team in a good place. It just didn’t work out,” he said. “I thought we were going to put the strongest team in together, but I guess we had some controversies going on where some athletes don’t want to run.

“It is what it is. I know I put my best foot forward.”

Russell said it disappointing to know that they couldn’t put the best team possible to try to get into the final.

“We come out here to represent our country, so I would expect everyone to feel the same way,” he insisted. “But I guess everyone different. It is what it is.”

On the team that went out for The Bahamas, Russell said they did the best they could.

When they changed the original team, Mathieu said he knew it was going to be difficult for them to advance.

“I feel we would have been a little better if we had just put in our top team out there as planned,” he said. “I guess things happen like that some times.”

Agreed upon to run in the heats were Mathieu, Stevie Gardiner, Russell and Miller, but Mathieu said Gardiner decided that he didn’t “want to be with us no more. So we just had to go with the young guy”.

Obviously, his absence without veteran Chris “Fireman” Brown on the team, made a whole lot of a difference.

“If he had ran with us, we definitely would have been headed back and our moral would have been a little higher. But when they say he wasn’t going to be with us, they felt that they had a chance to beat us and that is what the competition did.”

After running a season’s best without Gardiner, Mathieu said it’s hard to say what they would have done if he was in the mix.

“If this was our first race for all of us and it was a blow out,” he stressed. “I felt like we could have come back harder because normally we do. So a lot of us were expecting him to be out there with us to pull us through and then hopefully we could have been faster.”

Ferguson was just grateful that he got another to run on the international stage again with the team.

“We didn’t get what we wanted too, but at the end of the day, we gave it our all,” he said. “I just want to thank God. We gave it our all. That’s all I can say. I know I gave it my all.”

With a last minute decision to switch the team, Miller said they did what they could do.

“This was not the original team, but athletes figured they wouldn’t run for their reason,” he stressed. “We had to run our best team out there to make it back. We didn’t want to take any chances, but he (Gardiner) told the coaches he wasn’t going to run.

So we had to put that aside and come out here and do what we had to do.”

Miller admitted that the team was not the best, they went out and they did their best.

“We ran a season’s best, but we was hoping that we could make the final because we are the top dawgs. The top dawgs didn’t show up today.”

After missing out on the final at the last championships in Beijing, China, the team of Alonzo Russell, Michael Mathieu, Steven Gardiner and Chris Brown ran 2:58.48 for the bronze behind the gold medal feat from the United States and Jamaica with the silver.

In the grand finale in London without The Bahamas entered, Trinidad & Tobago ran a world leading 2:58.12 for the gold, upsetting the USA, who had to settle for the silver in a season;s best of 2:58.61. The bronze went to host Great Britain in their season;s best of 2:59.00.