July 22, 2010
MONCTON, Canada - Rising sophomore Evonne Britton (El Paso, Texas) placed sixth in the 100-meter hurdles, Thursday evening at the IAAF World Championships at Moncton 2010 Stadium. The current Nittany Lion, who is representing the United States, had a busy day on Thursday, also qualifying through to the final in the 400-meter hurdles.
The El Paso, Texas, native, who was the lone American in the eight-athlete final, clocked an effort of 13.50 seconds to place sixth - just four hundredths of a second out of third place - in a tightly contested race. Norway's Isabelle Pedersen scored gold-medal honors in the competition, clocking 13.30, with Germans Jenna Pletsch and Miriam Hehl taking second and third, respectively, to round out the medal standings.
Britton will continue to compete at the Championships, thanks to a second-place effort in her semi-final section of the 400 hurdles, where she clocked 59.62, in rainy conditions. Katsiaryna Artsiukh of Belarus posted the top effort in qualifying, breaking the tape in 57.52. U.S. teammate Cristina Holland also earned one of the eight qualifying spots for Saturday's final.
"I thought that it was good. Due to the conditions, I felt good," said Britton, who ran the semi out of lane two. "It's a little more challenging on the inside (lane) because you have to get out and catch people. That's what I tried to do and I did the best I could to execute that way."
Britton will take the day off tomorrow before competing in the 400 hurdle final at 3:10 p.m., EDT. Meanwhile, classmate Casimir Loxsom (New Haven, Conn.) will finally get a chance to get on the track, with the 800-meter preliminaries for 10:20 a.m., EDT, on Friday morning.