Tokyo, Japan – Jamaica suffered two technical rules disqualifications in the women’s 400m hurdles in the morning session of day two action at the Olympic Stadium here at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Ronda Whyte was disqualified for false starting in heat four, while Leah Nugent finished fourth but was disqualified for a technical rules violation of lane infringement. 

Jamaica’s third entrant Janieve Russell made safe progress after finishing second in heat two in 54.81 seconds. 

Shadae Lawrence then threw herself into the women’s discus final after landing 62.27m for third place in Group A, and was the 11

^th

 best qualifier of the 12 needed for the final. 

National champion Megan Tapper then led all three ladies to the semi-finals of the women’s 100m hurdles with good performances. 

Tapper registered a personal best 12.53 seconds to finish second to Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn in an easy 12.41 seconds in heat five. 

Yanique Thompson had led off the Jamaicans in heat three where she finished second in 12.74 seconds, while Britany Anderson recovered from hitting the second hurdle to win heat four in 12.67 seconds. 

Thompson was pleased with her effort, despite a few difficulties in the execution of the event. 

“That performance for me wasn’t the best because usually, the end part of my race is usually the better half and I hit a couple of hurdles at that point, so all I have to do is just clean it up for the semi-final and hopefully, it can be good enough for me to be in the finals,” she told the Jamaican media shortly afterwards. 

“This year for me has been the best because I have been able to race more than I am usually able to, not going to say that I am in a better shape, but because I was able to race more, everything came together well enough to put me in a better position.” 

“I’m very optimistic, I’m a believer of God and I know that he can do amazing things and I just put my trust in Him and know that I put in the work and I just leave it in his hands now and just try to execute the races as best as I can.” 

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Ian Burnett [/naviga:li][/naviga:ul]