Tracksters to concentrate on men’s, women’s relays

Dream team for Worlds, Olympics

CITY OF ILAGAN, Philippines — American sprint and hurdles coach Roshan Griffin said Team Philippines is taking advantage of its deep pool of sprinters to make a serious bid at qualifying for the IAAF World Relays and possibly the Olympics.

Griffin said he’s excited to have the likes of Olympian Eric Cray, Jomar Udtohan, Anfernee Lopena, Clinton Bautista, Patrick Unso, and Trenten Berram at his disposal for the men’s quartet and twins Kayla and Kyla Richardson, Kristina Knott, Eloisa Luzon, and Zion Corrales Nelson for the ladies side as Team Phl seeks to crack big time in the relays.

“That’s what we’re striving for and I think we have a good chance if we get a chance to race a lot and get these individuals together racing a lot,” Griffin told The STAR.

The Filipino relays crew need to hit the qualifying standards of 39.10 (men’s) and 44.2 (women’s) to earn tickets to the IAAF World Relays in May in Yokohama, Japan, where a Top 16 ranking brings it further to the World Championships and a spot in the pool for the Tokyo Olympiad.

“We’ve run 39.11 seconds (men’s) and 44.18 (women’s) so we’re not far off,” he said, referring to the marks set by the Phl quartets in the 2017 Southeast Asian Games. “We just have to get them together and do it...I have confidence we can qualify for the Olympics and World Championships because with less preparations, we’ve gone very, very close to both standards.”

Griffin noted how the men’s squad submitted three of the fastest times in Phl history last year despite assembling just two days prior to the competitions. Same is true for the ladies, who broke the national record in their first teamup.

“We have a talented pool  and we just have to work on chemistry and dynamics and get together as often as we can,” he said.”It’s exciting to see and hopefully we can do some great things.