The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS 

Chief Sports Editor 

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

PARIS, France — As one of the bright young stars to watch, Antoine Andrews secured his berth into the semifinals of the men’s 110m hurdles at the 2024 Olympic Games.

Andrews, making his debut at the four-yearly games, advanced out of Sunday’s heats with a second-place finish in the third of five heats at the Stade de France on day four of the track and field competition, in 13.43 seconds.

Zhuoyi Xu from China won the heat in 13.40.

But American Grant Holloway had the fastest qualifying time of 13.01 in winning the last of the five heats.

The 21-year-old sophomore at Texas Tech placed 14th overall going into Wednesday’s semis.

However, he told The Tribune that even if he doesn’t make the final on Thursday, he was just delighted to be able to compete at the highest level of competition in the world. “I felt pretty good. This was my first ever Olympics, so to come here and to make it to the semifinals is a blessing,’’ said Andrews, who came into the games with a personal best of 13.34.

Andrews, however, admitted that he felt the jitterbugs going through the warm up prior to the start of the race.

“I had to tell myself that I just have to go out there and do it,” he said. “Behind the blocks, I had to calm myself and tell myself ‘you gat this. You gat this.’”

With a few days in between the semis, Andrews said it’s back to the drawing board to try and correct what he didn’t do right to be ready to continue his start to the global competition.

“I’m just going to go back and look at the tape and see what I can fix,” he said.

No doubt, it will enable him to clinch one of the eight spots for the final. If he doesn’t, he said he will still be content because he’s here competing in the Olympics.