Commonwealth Games champion Lerone Clarke will contest this evening’s 100m final at the 16th Pan-American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico after winning his semi-final heat on yesterday’s first full day of track and field action at the Telmex Stadium.

Five events were decided yesterday to make it seven gold medals handed out in track and field in two days so far.

Clarke, who won his semi-final in 10.17 seconds (-1.9m/s), well ahead of the Dominican Republic’s Jorge Carlos Rafael (10.30 seconds), will be the only Jamaican in today’s race after 2010 national champion Oshane Bailey was one of two runners who were disqualified in the second semi-final.

Bailey, who missed the Commonwealth Games last year due to injuries, had qualified for the second round as one of six fastest losers after he was third in the first heat in 10.41 seconds.

Clarke, who anchored the Jamaican 4x100m relay team to the gold at the Central American and Caribbean Championships in July, had the second fastest time after the first round, winning the fifth and final first round heat in 10.15 seconds (-0.1m/s).

In today’s final which will be run at 6:20 pm Jamaican time, Clarke will go up against St Kitts and Nevis’ IAAF World Championships 100m bronze medallist Kim Collins, who won the second semi-final heat in a season beat 10.00 seconds as well as Trinidad and Tobago’s Emmanuel Callender, who also clocked 10.17 seconds behind Collins.

Defending champion and record holder Maurice Smith led with 4,370 points, 132 points ahead of Cuba’s Leonel Suarez (4,238 points) with Argentina’s Roman Andres Gastaldi third with 4,202 points in the decathlon, while the second Jamaican Claston Bernard had worked his way up to eighth place on 3,853 points after a strong high jump performance.

Smith, the 2007 IAAF World Championships silver medallist, who dropped out after six events in Deagu, rolled back the years with a number of performances that were his best in many years.

His long jump of 7.36m was the best in six years; his shot put of 17.35m was the best since 2008, his high jump of 1.99m was his second best ever, while his 49.26 seconds in the 400m was a season’s best.

National record holder and CAC Championships gold medallist Jason Morgan was seventh in the discus throw with a best effort of 58.91m.

Morgan, who was 10th in his qualifying group at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu and 15th overall, failed to go over the 60m mark internationally for the first time this season.

Meanwhile, it was an otherwise tough day for the Jamaicans as none of the others managed to past the first round of their events.

Herbert McGregor just failed to make it to the final of the men’s long jump after a best mark of 7.46m on the first of his three attempts fell just short of the 12th best of 7.53m done by American Jeremy Allyn Hicks, who placed fifth in the A qualifying group.

McGregor was eighth in the B qualifying group.

Both female 400m hurdlers failed to get past the semis-finals, as Sheryl Morgan finished fifth in her heat in 59.59 seconds, while Girls’ Champs bronze medallist Rushell Clayton was sixth and last in her race in a pedestrian 1 minute 03.44 seconds.

Three-time national champion Natalie Grant finished 13th in field of 14 in the women’s hammer throw final with just one legal effort of 57.73m, well below her season best 62.46m done at the CAC championships in Puerto Rico in July.

She fouled her first two throws then missed the top eight and a place in the final by just over three metres.

Cuba’s former world champion Yipsi Moreno retained her title with a personal best 75.62m that came on her final effort after she threw 73.67m on her first effort, a throw that would have still won the gold, before fouling her next four attempts.

Today, Central American and Caribbean and World University Games gold medallist O’Dayne Richards will go hunting for more medals when he lines up in the men’s shot put final.

Richards surpassed 19.00m on his way to gold on both occasions, including his personal best 19.93m at the World University Games in China.

He will, however, come up against his biggest test as there are six throwers in the field with personal bests over 20.00m, including Canada’s Daegu World Championships silver medallist Dylan Armstrong, who comes in with a season best and personal best 22.21m.

Michael Mason and Anssert Whyte will line up in the men’s 400m semi-finals, while Patricia Hall will contest the female one lap race.