The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

DAY one of the track and field competition at the third Youth Olympic Games didn’t turn out the way the Bahamian athletes expected in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Shaun Miller, the first to taste competition yesterday, had to settle for ninth place in the men’s high jump after the 17-year-old bowed out at 2.05 metres, or 6-feet, 8 3/4-inches - the same height as five other competitors ahead of him. Miller, however, will have a chance to come back in the second stage on Sunday to make up some ground on his rivals.

Long Chen, of China, took the early lead with 2.13m (6-11 3/4), while Arttu Mattila of Finland sat in second with 2.09m (6-10 1/4), the same height cleared by Oleh Doroshchuk of the Ukraine for third place. The medals will be decided when all of the competitors compete again in the second stage on Sunday.

The format for the Youth Olympics is slightly differently from the actual Olympic Games where all the participants are awarded their final positions based on their accumulative performances in two rounds of competition.

On the track, 16-year-old Megan Moss, running out of lane three in the third of four heats of the women’s 400 metres, held the lead all the way around the track until she got on the final stretch.

But as she tried to accelerate down the straight away, she faded due to an injury and eventually stopped running and walked across the finish line in one minute and 2.25 seconds.

Liefde Schoemaker of Belgium went on to take the tape in 56.14 to easily win the heat.

Following Moss, Raymond Oriakhi contested the men’s 400m where he ran out of lane two in the third heat. The 16-year-old ended up in fourth place in 51.01 as Lorenzo Benati of Italy stopped the clock in 48.58 to win the heat.

Today, Adrian Curry, 17, will be entered in the men’s 100m. He will be contesting the last of five heats in lane seven.

The Bahamas’ only other competitor, 16-year-old Matthew Thompson, will be competing in the men’s 400m hurdles on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in the pool at the natatorium, Izaak Bastian completed his hectic schedule of events by contesting the first of the two semi-finals of the men’s 50m breaststroke.

Bastian had to settle for eighth place in a time of 29.35 as Michael James Houlie, of the Republic of South Africa, touched the wall first in the one-lap race in 27.33. While Houlie qualified for the final with the fastest time, Bastian finished at the end of the spectrum in 16th place.

It was the first second swim in an event for Bastian, who didn’t advance in the 100m breast, 50m free, 200m breast and 50m breast during the course of the first four of the six days of competition.

Bastian, 17, qualified for the 50m breast semi-final after he got fifth in heat four of the qualifying round earlier in the day in a time of 29.01. The performance placed him 12th in a field of 16 qualifiers for the semis.

The Bahamas was also represented in swimming by 18-year-old Victoria Russell, who finished fourth in the second of seven heats of the women’s 50m butterfly in 28.40 on Sunday, but didn’t advance.

Team Bahamas is being led by Clarence Rolle, the chef de mission, assisted by Oria Wood. The head coach for the track team is Steven Murray and Sara Knowles is the coach for the swim team.

In 2014 at the second Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, the Bahamas picked up a pair of bronze medals from swimmer Joanna Evans in the 800m free and track athlete Henri Delauze in the men’s 400m. The initial Youth Olympics was staged in Singapore in 2010. The fourth Youth Olympics is scheduled for Dakar, Senegal, in 2022.