KINGSTON, Jamaica — Intermediate hurdlers Malik James-King and Leonardo Ledgister as well as 200m runner Xavier Nairne all made progress on this morning’s short session of the IAAF World Under-20 Championships at Tampere stadium in Finland.

James-King and Ledgister were automatic qualifiers to Friday’s semi-finals while Nairne made progress as one of the fastest losers.

James-King looked very relaxed in winning his opening round heat in the 400m hurdles in 51.54 seconds and then told reporter, “yes it was as easy as it looked, feel really good but there was some shuffling but I will work that out by the semi-finals.”

Ledgister who ran 51.65 seconds, led early but backed off in the home stretch and was beaten to the finish line by Barbadian Rasheem Griffith who ran a season’s best 51.02 seconds.

He admitted that he went out too fast in the first 200m and had to adjust over the second half of the race and said being nervous at the start could have contributed to that.

Meanwhile, there was bad news for both female long jumpers Ackelia Smith and Susan Francis as they both failed to move forward to tomorrow’s final.

Sixteen year-old Smith had a best jump of 5.90m (-.0.3m/s) while Francis fouled her first two attempts before finishing with 5.47m (-0.2m/s), both finishing at the bottom of their respective qualifying group.

Paul Reid