REPEATING his 2013 feat, Olympian Winston George yesterday finished with the silver in the men’s 400m final at the ongoing Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, winning Guyana’s first medal at this year’s event.
Under cold conditions, George ran the quarter mile in 45.69 seconds coming in behind Bahrain’s Ali Khamis Khamis who clocked 45.54 seconds, and just ahead of the 45.92 seconds finish from Iran’s Ali Khadevar.
The performance marks the third silver medal, at the Games, for the national record-holder, who also won silver in both the 400m and 200m, when the quadrennial event was held in 2013 in Indonesia.
George still has a fighting chance of taking another silver or even upgrading to a gold in the men’s 200m, after he paved a way to the final off a 20.87 seconds finish in the semi-finals, where he finished top of the heats.
Things are looking particularly good for George, who enters today’s final with the fastest semifinals time. George leads the group which also includes Turkey’s Ramil Guliev and Izzet Safer, Suriname’s Jeffrey Vanan, Bahrain’s Eid Salem Yaqoob; Adama Jammeh from Gambia; Saaid Hassan from Maldives and Skander Athmani from Algeria.
Meanwhile after finishing fourth in her women’s 200m heats, Guyana’s Alita Moore found herself disqualified for a lane violation, ending her time in that race.
She, however, still has a hat in the women’s 400m, where she comes in with an entry time of 54.47 seconds; running out of heat two of three.
The other athletes on the Guyana team, Natrena Hooper and Emanuel Archibald will also be out on the field today, competing in the women’s high jump and men’s long jump respectively.
Hooper was already in the Tuesday’s women’s triple jump where she managed to clear only 11.78m, while Archibald made it only to 13.34m in the men’s triple jump which was won by Azebaijan’s Nazim Babayev with a distance of 17.15m.