Mark Maloney on Kentucky sports

BEIJING — University of Kentucky senior Mikel Thomas, competing for his native Trinidad and Tobago, placed sixth in his heat Tuesday night (a.m. U.S.) in quarterfinals of the men’s 110-meter hurdles at the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium.

Thomas ran in the first of four heats. The first three in each heat, plus the next three fastest finishers, will advance to the semifinals. After two heats, it was clear that Thomas would not qualilfy on time.

Thomas ran a personal-best wind-legal time of 13.62. (UK had listed his 13.57 as a school record, but that race was wind-aided.)

David Payne of the U.S. won the heat in 13.24, followed by Petr Svoboda of the Czech Republic and Shi Dongpeng of China. In fourth, Konstadinos Douvalidis set a Greek national record of 13.46. Jamaica’s Richard Phillips was fifth, followed by Thomas, Igor Peremoto of Russia and Hector Cotto of Puerto Rico.

As it turned out, Thomas needed to run faster than 13.51 in order to qualify on time.

U.S. champion David Oliver, in the last heat, had the fastest time, 13.16.

World record-holder Dayron Robles of Cuba was next, a heat winner in 13.19.

Payne ranked third.

This entry was posted on August 19, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Kentucky, Lexington, Mikel Thomas, Olympics, Track and field, University of Kentucky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.