Louie Hinchliffe's run at the world championships ends as Brits can't get the baton around...

TOKYO--
In his first appearance of the world championships, former Washington State standout Louie Hinchliffe (Erik Aguillar photo) reprised his role, running the second leg on Great Britain's 4 x 100 relay in the qualifying heat for Sunday's final at the World Athletics Championship Saturday night at Japan National Stadium.

The Brits, who won the bronze medal at the Olympics in the 4 x 100 relay last year with Hinchliffe on the second leg, were expected to be one of the favorites for a spot in Sunday's finals.

With Jeremiah Azu on the leadoff leg for Great Britain, Hinchliffe got the baton in good shape, and had the lead according to the splits provided by the Seiko timing company.

Ghana's Benjamin Azamati ran a storming second leg to give them a slight advantage over  Great Britain, with the Netherlands and Japan still in contention.

Unfortunately, for the Brits, it all went wrong on the anchor leg, as Eugene Amo-Dadzie appeared to leave his mark too early, and third leg Jona Efoloko could not catch up to make the pass by the end of the exchange zone.

Washington State alum Jasneet Nijjar of Canada, who was the only other athlete with Washington ties projected to compete Saturday night, wasn't selected by the Canadian squad to run in the heats of the women's 4 x 400 meter relay.

The Canadians finished a non-qualifying fifth in their heat, running a season best 3:26.33.

In finals contested Saturday night on the track and the roads, Beatrice Chebet of Kenya, already the 10000 meter champion in Tokyo, won the 5000 in 14:54.36 over fellow Kenyan Faith Kipyegon.

Canada's Marco Arop of Edmonton's bid to defend his world title in the men's 800 meters fell just short, as reigning Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi won in a championship record 1:41.86.

In the two walking events, Maria Perez of Spain won the women's 20k walk in 1:25:54, while the men's 20k title went to Caio Bonfim of Brazil in 1:18:35.

In what may possibly be a slight upset, Jessica Schilder of the Netherlands upended American Chase Jackson's bid for a three-peat in the women's shot, throwing 66-7 (20.29m) in the final round. Jackson could only respond with her best throw of the night of 66-3.75 (20.21m) in the final round.

The javelin saw Juleisy Angulo of Ecuador win her country's first medal, upsetting the form chart and producing arguably the biggest shock of the meet, winning with a national record 213-7 (65.12m).


In the two-day heptathlon, Anna Hall (Paul Merca photo) of the USA won her first world title, scoring a total of 6888 points.

US teammate and Arkansas alum Taliyah Brooks set a personal best of 6581 points to tie for third and a spot on the podium with defending world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain.

The world track and field championships conclude its nine day run Sunday with eight finals plus the conclusion of the two-day decathlon.

Decathlon fans can watch the final day starting at 4:55 pm Pacific Saturday afternoon on Peacock ($), while the bulk of the final day of competition begins at 3:30 aim Pacific Sunday morning on CNBC and Peacock ($)


NOTE: World Athletics contributed to this report.

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