T&T’s Deon Lendore, Jereem “The Dream” Richards, Machel Cedenio and Dwight St Hillaire clocked the fourth-fastest time in the men’s 4×400 metres relay round one heats to earn the right to race for a medal on Saturday at the Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan.

The final, as is traditionally done, will bring the curtain down on the track and field programme at the Olympics at 8.50 am (T&T time) and it will be the last chance for T&T to reach the podium in athletics.

On Friday in heat one of two at the Olympic Stadium, the local quartet produced a season’s best time of two minutes and 58.33 seconds to place third and progress as an automatic qualifier along with Americans Trevor Stewart, Randolph Ross, Bryce Deadmon and Vernon Norwood, who also ran a season-best 2:57.77 and Botswana quartet of Isaac Makwala, Baboloki Thebe, Zibane Ngozi and Bayapo Ndori, in an African record of 2:58.33.

Lendore, a 400m semifinalist, running the opening leg for T&T in lane three, was quick off the block and came into the first changeover to 200m finalist Richards, narrowly ahead of Botswana’s Makwala (lane nine) and American Stewart (lane seven), who respectively handed over to teammates Thebe and Ross.

When the leading second-leg trio moved to the inside line, Thebe filled the lead position followed by Ross and Richards as the Netherlands (Jochem, Dobber, Terrence Agard, Tony van Diepen, Ramsey Angela) in fourth and Italy (Alessandro Sibilio, Vladimir Aceti, Edoardo Scotti, Davide Re) in fifth, began to threaten.

Richards was fourth to hand over behind Deadmon (USA), Ngozi (Botswana) and Aceti (Italy), to the fast-finishing Cedenio and T&T’s other 400m semifinalist didn’t disappoint. He got T&T back into third place soon after receiving the baton and gave chase to the leaders USA and Botswana, who started to pull away.

However, Cedenio blazed the final 50 metres to get to anchor St Hillaire, another of T&T’s 400m semifinalists, and handed over together with Botswana (Ndori) while Norwood had established an even bigger lead for the Americans, which they never relinquished.

During the final leg, Re started to close on St Hillaire, who sped up in chase of Botswana’s Ndori but he helped the African nation stay on for second place. The local quarter-miler had enough distance on the Italian runner to safely get T&T over the line in third place.

In the slower heat two, Poland, which had already won the gold in the inaugural Olympic 4x400m mixed relay, had a come-from-behind victory in a season-best time of 2:58.55 ahead Jamaica, who also ran a season’s best of 2:59.29 to finish second, followed by Belgium, the last auto-qualifier from the heat in third with 2:59.37.

Heat one’s fourth-placed finisher Italy (2:58.91) and fifth-placed Netherlands (2:59.06) who both achieved national records were the non-automatic qualifiers for today’s final which may see the return of Michael Cherry and Michael Norman, who finished fourth and fifth, respectively for the USA in the 400m final on Thursday. They were rested during the relay’s first round.

Lendore, Richards and Cedenio, who were members of the T&T unit which beat the Americans to emerge the 4x400m champion in the 2017 World Championships in London enter as one of the favourites for a medal.

Paul, Browne go in search of Keirin gold

Just as T&T’s 4x400m relay team cycling duo Nicholas Paul and Kwesi Browne will get a final chance to try for a medal at the Olympics.

The local cyclists will compete in the men’s keirin event early Saturday (T&T time) at the Izu Velodrome.

Browne will race in heat one of five at 2.48 am against five other cyclists including favourite Jason Kenny of Great Britain, who is the defending champion and a former Olympic sprints champion, Rayan Helal of France, Germany’s Maximilian Levy, New Zealander Sam Webster and Ivan Gladyshev of the Russian Olympic Committee.

Paul, the sixth-place finisher in the men’s sprints event, will ride in heat three at 2.58 am versus Malaysia’s Azizulhasni Awang, another favourite in the event, Frenchman Sebastian Vigier, Stefan Boetticher of Germany, Patryk Rajkowski of Poland and South African Jean Spies.

Positioning in the lineup is of utmost importance in the Keirin, so both T&T cyclists attempt to use their best strategy to finish at the top of their respective heat in the six-lap race where the first two riders in each heat qualify to the quarterfinals, while all other riders advance to the repechages. All scheduled today with final carded for later Saturday night.