Abrams, Chance continue 400m dominance at AAG Senior Championship

Arinze Chance and Aliyah Abrams gave no chance to their nearest rivals as they emphatically won the 400m finals at the Athletics Association of Guyana (AAG) Senior Championships at the National Track and Field Facility on Saturday.

The two sprinters, who are based in the United States of America, showed their superiority with commanding runs at the Leonora track.

The attention was on Chance since he needed to run a blistering 44.90s to meet the entry standard time for next month’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

After a breezy 46.56s in the preliminaries on Friday evening, there was high expectation the Powerade Brand Ambassador would at least run a sub-46 time, but he was only able to clock 47.66s.

He still finished about 10 meters ahead of nearest rival Michael James (49.53s) and Courtly Bobb (50.01s).

For Abrams, she would have already qualified for the Games – the lone Track and Field athlete from Guyana to date – and the aim would have been improving ahead of the Games.

Abrams ran 54.51s, a vastly slower time to her Personal Best of 51.13s, which was achieved in June 2019, or even the season-best time of 51.46s recorded in May.

Joanna Archer (57.06s) and Collia Rowe (58.37s) completed the podium spots.

The 24-year-old Abrams, who will compete at her second Olympics, stated that she has two more meets lined up ahead of Tokyo to get closer to her best.

Meanwhile, Guyana Defence Force’s Mark Jhalu registered his Personal Best and a new national stadium record of 2.12m in the High Jump, while Natrena Hooper won the female version of the jump in 1.63m.

Earlier in the day, Cleveland Thomas won the Men’s 1500m in four minutes, 8.68 seconds, followed by Nicholas Daw (4:10.52s) and Anfernee Headecker (4:11.68s).

In the Women’s 1500m event, Shaquka Tyrell took gold in a time of five minutes, 13.52 seconds, followed by Aaliyah Headley (5:31.65s) and Tia Azore (5:38.58s).

Sunday will mark the final day of the championship, which gets underway at 13:00h.