Michelle-Lee Ahye is not wasting any time in her bid to qualify for the July 23-August 8 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

On April 18, Ahye completed a two-year suspension for “whereabouts failures”, leaving the Trinidad and Tobago track star with just a ten-week window to secure qualification for the Tokyo Games.

On Saturday, Ahye was eight-hundredths of a second outside the 11.15 seconds women’s 100 metres Olympic qualifying standard, stopping the clock at 11.23 for victory at the Azusa Pacific University (APU) Last Chance Twilight meet in Azusa, California, USA.

On the same day, Ahye was on show in another city in California, Irvine. The reigning Commonwealth Games champion finished fifth in the 100m dash in 11.36.

On Friday, at the Moorpark Open, also in California, Ahye won the 200m in 23.44 seconds-her fastest half-lap clocking this season. In her comeback race, on April 30, the 29-year-old sprinter produced a 23.47 run. And on May 9, she clocked 23.57.

While Ahye needs to shave eight-hundredths of a second off her 100m season’s best to book a Tokyo ticket, she has a considerably tougher task in the longer sprint. Her 23.44 run is 64-hundredths of a second slower than the 22.80 standard. The Carenage athlete, however, is the 200m national record holder at 22.25, and more than capable of qualifying by the June 29 deadline. She is also in possession of the T&T 100m record with a 10.82 run.

Ahye reached both sprint finals at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and seems on course to again fly the Red, White and Black in Tokyo. Though she is still racing her way back to form, the US-based runner is at the top of the 2021 T&T performance list in the 100 at 11.23 and third in the 200 with her 23.44 clocking.

Sparkle McKnight also competed at Saturday’s meet in Irvine, California. The T&T athlete earned bronze in the women’s 400m hurdles in 56.54 seconds.

At the Aggie Classic Twilight meet, in North Carolina, Coppin State University senior Aaron Lewis bagged men’s 110m hurdles bronze in 14.27 seconds. Iantha Wright finished fifth in the women’s 100m final in 12.04. The Life University sprinter was faster in the preliminary round, getting to the line in 11.93.

At the Trial of Miles: Night at the Track meet, in New Jersey, Dawnell Collymore was seventh in the women’s 800m. Collymore returned a time of two minutes, 10.91 seconds.