Jahir advances to 400m semifinals
Mohammad Jahir Rayhan produced his personal best to qualify for the 400m semifinals in the IAAF World U-18 Championships in Nairobi yesterday.
The promising athlete, who earned the right to run in the World U-18 Championships after a formidable display in the Asian Youth Championships last May with his previous-best of 49.12 seconds, finished behind Jamaican Anthony Cox (46.53 seconds) and Slovenian Gregor Grahovac (47.74 seconds) to finish third in Heat-1 with a time of 48.00 seconds.
He finished 14th overall among 33 participants and is scheduled to participate in the semifinals today where he faces an uphill task to reach the eight-man final.
The boy from Sherpur not only broke his previous best, but also became the second Bangladeshi athlete after sprinter Abdullah Hel Kafi to advance to the semifinals of a global event organised by the IAAF. Kafi, who now coaches Jahir, had qualified for the 100m semifinals in the World Youth Games in Moscow in 1998.
"I am really happy to have qualified for the semifinals after taking part in such a big event for the first time," Jahir told reporters yesterday.
"I didn't expect that I would be able to surpass my previous best but today [Wednesday] I bettered my time and that has made me confident to give more effort in the semifinals. I am now dreaming of further improving my time in the semifinals and writing my name in the final," said the 11th-grade student of Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protisthan (BKSP).
The gold-winner in 200m and 400m sprint in last edition's Junior Athletics Championships, could also have participated in the 200m sprint in the ongoing event in Nairobi had he clocked 22.05 seconds in the Asian Youth Championship in Thailand. However, he clocked 22.09 seconds which meant he missed the opportunity to qualify for 200m in IAAF World U-18 Championship.
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