Louie Hinchliffe's solid second leg helps Great Britain to Olympic bronze in men's 4x100 relay...

SAINT-DENIS, France--On the penultimate day of Olympic track and field competition at the Stade de France, former WSU Cougar Louie Hinchliffe (left/photo courtesy British Athletics), who was not on the radar of knowledgable sprint fans worldwide before this season, ran the second leg of the 4 x 100 meter relay for Great Britain, helping the Brits grab a bronze medal Friday night.

The Brits got off to a slow start with leadoff man Jeremiah Azu, but Hinchliffe, running in lane 4, maintained his composure and helped his squad get back in contention by chasing the United States, which was positioned in lane 5.

Like yesterday's prelims, Hinchliffe, who became a revelation during the collegiate season by winning the 100 meter dash at the NCAA championships, ran head to head on the second leg against his University of Houston teammate Shaun Maswanganyi of South Africa, and Olympic 200 meter silver medalist Kenny Bednarek, who replaced Fred Kerley of the USA. Kerley was moved to anchor after Noah Lyles came down with Covid a few days ago, but ran in the finals of the 200 Thursday night.

The USA, with Christian Coleman on the leadoff, ended up passing out of the zone and were disqualified.

Canada, with former Olympic 200m champion Andre DeGrasse on the anchor, won in 37.50, with South Africa second in an African record 37.57, while the Brits finished third in a season best 37.61.

Hinchliffe told reporters in the mixed zone, “You could see it was a really messy race but we gave all of it. It was all heart, all pure speed and we gave 110 per cent. You could see how much we wanted it and we got the result so its great.”

In Friday's morning session, former Washington State All-American Charisma Taylor of the Bahamas set a personal best in a third place finish in the second semifinal of the women's 100 hurdles, running 12.63.

Just behind Taylor was recent WSU grad Maribel Caicedo in fourth, as the NCAA runner up finished in 12.67.

Both had to play catch up after starting the slowest of the eight women in the heat. Taylor held a reaction time of .151 and .156 for Caicedo.

Brandon Miller of the Brooks Beasts, running his third race in three days, finished fifth in 1:45.79, after starting strong with a 52.0 first 400.

Canada qualified for the finals in the 4 x 400 with a fourth place finish in 3:25.77 without Washington State grad Jasneet Nijjar.

FRIDAY'S FINALS RECAP...

Besides the men's 4 x 100 meter relay, there were five other finals contested in front of a capacity crowd of 75000 at the Stade de France.

In the women's 4 x 100 relay, the American squad of Melissa Jefferson, Tee Tee Terry, Gabby Thomas, and Sha'Carri Richardson won the gold medal after coming from behind to win in 41.78, with Great Britain second at 41.85, and Germany third at 41.97.

Reigning world champion Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic won the women's 400 in an Olympic record 48.17, with Salwa Eid Naser of Burundi second in 48.53, and Poland's Natalia Kaczmarek third in 48.98.

The common denominator of all three men's triple jump medalists were that all were former Cuban citizens. 

Jordan Diaz Fortun of Spain won the title with a jump of 58-7.25 (17.86m), two centimeters better than defending champion Pedro Pechado's 58-6.5 (17.84m). Andy Diaz Hernandez, who became eligible to represent Italy on August 1st, was third at 57-10.5 (17.64m).

Beatrice Chebet of Kenya added a gold medal to the one she won in the 5000 earlier in the meet, as she won the women's 10000 in a modest 30:43.25, ahead of Italy's Nadia Battocletti's national record 30:43.35. Former Portland resident Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands added to her career Olympic and world championship medal total, winning number eleven with her third place finish in 30:44.12.

Belgium's Nafi Thiam became the first woman in Olympic history to win three straight heptathlon championships, taking the two day, seven event competition with a final score of 6880 points.

She held off Great Britain's Katarina Johnson-Thompson's late charge in the 800 meters, as Thiam ran 2:10.62 to Johnson-Thompson's 2:04.90. KJ-T's 800 time wasn't enough to overcome Thiam's 5904-5803 lead going into the final event.

Noor Vidts of Belgium was third with a personal best 6707 points.

In the final event of Friday night, USC alum Rai Benjamin of the USA tied his season best to win the men's 400 hurdles over Norway's defending Olympic champion Karsten Warholm with a time of 46.36 to 47.06.  Alison dos Santos of Brazil was third at 47.26.

ON TAP SATURDAY...

Saturday closes out the track and field portion of the Olympics at the Stade de France.

The men's marathon kicks things off on the streets of Paris at 8 am local time/11 pm Friday night Pacific time.

Eight finals are on the docket to close out the track and field competition, including the men's high jump, 800, and 5000.

On the women's side, individual finals are in the javelin, 100 hurdles, and 1500 meter runs.

Closing out the meet are the men's and women's 4 x 400 meter relays.

Washington State grad Jasneet Nijjar, who did not run in Friday's 4 x 400 meter relay heats for Canada is potentially the only athlete with Washington ties who could compete Saturday night.

Nijjar, who was fourth in the Canadian championships in the 400, earned selection for Canada's relay pool. The composition of their team will be announced shortly before the race.

In Friday's prelims, the Canadians ran Kyra Constantine, and Aiyanna Stiverne, who finished fifth and sixth at the nationals. Nijjar and Savannah Sutherland, who ran in the finals of the 400 hurdles Thursday night, would most likely go in the place of Constantine and Stiverne, along with Canadian champ Zoe Sherar and Lauren Gale.

Sherar and Gale both ran in Friday's prelims as the leadoff and third legs for the Canadians.

The Canadians are in the final race of the meet at 12:22 pm Pacific/9:22 pm local time.

The start lists and results for the Olympic track and field competition is available on the World Athletics microsite, which is available here.

In the United States, streaming is available on the NBCOlympics.com site or Peacocktv.com ($).

Saturday's men's marathon will be shown live on USA Network starting at 11 pm Friday night Pacific, while the evening session will be broadcast on NBC starting at 10 am Pacific, and on KING5 in Seattle (check local listings for times of the NBC network broadcasts).

In Canada, Olympic action will be shown on CBC and streamed on CBC.ca.

NOTE: World Athletics, and British Athletics contributed to this report.

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