BEIJING -- When she lined up for the final of the women’s 200-meter dash Thursday evening at the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium, Lady Tiger great Muna Lee had one final opportunity to win an Olympic medal in an individual event at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.
Lee, who placed seventh in the event four years ago at the Athens Olympics, had already finished fifth in the final of the women’s 100-meter dash on Sunday.
Despite lining up on the outer reaches of the track in lane 9, Lee fired out of the blocks and hit the turn hard before crossing the finish line with a new personal best time of 22.01 seconds, an improvement of nearly three tenths of a second from the 22.29 she set in Wednesday’s semifinal.
But as she looked up to the video board to see the results, Lee’s named popped up in fourth place, a mere one one-hundredth of a second off the 22.00 posted by bronze medalist Kerron Stewart of Jamaica. Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown successfully defended her title with a personal best of 21.74, while American Allyson Felix took silver for the second straight Olympics at 21.93.
“I’m really happy with it. It was my best 200 in a long time,” Lee said. “I ran all the way through and that’s what I was looking for. It was actually good for me (being in lane 9) because I wasn’t worried about who was in front of me. I was able to run my race and not somebody else’s. It was a disappointment, but then again, I was very excited when I saw the time.
“I wanted a medal, of course, but I ran a PR (personal record) every time I stepped on the track. I can’t complain. I could be at home watching the race on TV.”
Lee’s hopes of winning a medal of any kind at these Olympic Games fell by the wayside during the qualifying of the 4x100-meter relay as the United States failed to advance to the final after the baton was dropped on the final exchange between Torri Edwards and Lauryn Williams. Lee was to be inserted into the lineup for the final scheduled to run Friday at 8:15 a.m. CT.
These Olympic Games have been a life-changing experience for LSU senior Richard Thompson as he not only won a silver medal in the 100-meter dash in his Olympic debut, but he is set to run for his second medal of the games on Friday after anchoring Trinidad and Tobago’s 4x100-meter relay team to the fastest time in the 16-team field during Thursday’s qualifying round.
While running against the United States in the first of two semifinal heats, teammates Keston Bledman, Marc Burns and Aaron Armstrong got the stick around to Thompson on the anchor and the Tiger star turned on the jets to cross the finish line in 38.26.
The race was shaping up to be a sprint to the finish line between Thompson and American Tyson Gay, but Gay bobbled the exchange from Darvis Patton coming off the final turn and the baton fell harmlessly to the track, eliminating the United States from any hope of a medal.
Thompson’s Trinidad and Tobago squad will battle the favored Jamaicans for the gold medal and will line up to their inside in lane 4 in the final set to run Friday at 9:10 a.m. CT.
Lady Tiger great and fellow Trinidad and Tobago native Kelly Baptiste ran the second leg on the women’s 4x100-meter relay team during Thursday’s semifinal, but the foursome failed to qualify for the final as Ayanna Hutchinson and Semoy Hackett missed the handoff on the final exchange. Baptiste advanced to the quarterfinal round of the 100-meter dash in her first Olympic Games.