HURDLER Robyn Brown followed pole vault ace EJ Obiena to the exits as she bowed out of the women’s 400-meter hurdles of the World Athletics Championships on Monday in Tokyo.
Ms. Brown clocked 57.03 seconds and wound up ninth and last in Heat 1 as she fell way short of a Top 4 finish in her group and an outright ticket to Wednesday’s semifinal races.
Overall, the world No. 63 Fil-Am ranked 40th in the heats, higher only than Yanick Haye-Smith of Turks and Caicos Island, who submitted 58.48 in Heat 5.
World No. 1 Femke Bol of the Netherlands, who won the gold medal in the 2023 world meet and back-to-back bronze in the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, flexed her muscles in topping Ms. Brown’s group in 53.75.
No. 13 Ayomide Folorunso of Italy (54.67), No. 15 Naomi Van den Broeck of Belgium (54.70) and No. 25 and Asian record holder Kemi Adekoya of Bahrain (55.15) took the next three positions in Heat 1 and joined Ms. Bol in the advance.
Clocking in fifth was No. 39 Hilla Uusimaki of Finland (55.52) followed by No. 42 Michelle Smith of US Virgin Islands (56.00), No. 26 Rogail Joseph of South Africa (56.20), No. 37 Alanah Yukich of Australia (56.68) then Ms. Brown.
The 31-year-old Ms. Brown’s elimination completed the shutout of two-member Team Philippines.
She got the boot two days after world No. 7 Mr. Obiena missed the cut for the 12-man pole vault finals. Mr. Obiena, silver medalist in the 2023 worlds, placed 18th overall in Saturday’s Qualification Round with a meager 5.55m vault. Swedish titan Armand Duplantis bannered the cast of finalists who logged identical 5.75m marks during the preliminaries. — Olmin Leyba
