Sept. 1, 2015

BEIJING, CHINA – The eyes of the track and field world rested on the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, as the IAAF World Championships were held Aug. 22-30. South Carolina’s track program was well represented at the meet, with five former Gamecocks representing four different countries and assistant head coach Delethea Quarles serving as the head women’s coach for Team USA.

Coach Quarles shared her thoughts about the experience with GamecocksOnline.com, you can read her entire entry here.

The meet began for the Gamecocks with the men’s and women’s 400-meter hurdles. Johnny Dutch would make it to the semifinal round for Team USA but missed a shot at the finals by just .28 seconds. Shevon Stoddart, running for Jamaica, came up just short of moving out of the preliminary rounds for her race.

In the high hurdles, Kierre Beckles ran the 100-meter race for Barbados and had a breakthrough for her home country. After entering the meet with a personal best of 13 seconds, Beckles ran a 12.88 with a head wind to advance out of the preliminary rounds. In the process, her time broke Barbados’ national record. Her time would be similar in the semifinals, at 12.90, but she came just shy of making the finals.

The Gamecocks had another semifinalist out of the women’s sprints, as Natasha Hastings made it through the second round of action in the 400-meter dash. She had a top time of 51.25, but could not crack the final eight. Her meet was not finished, though, as she earned a spot on the 4×400 relay team to close out the meet. She ran the second leg of the race and helped the U.S. earn silver.

In the field events, 2015 NCAA high jump national champion Jeannelle Scheper took the field representing St. Lucia. She had little trouble in the qualifying round, hitting 1.92 meters to finish sixth in her flight. In the finals, she would match that mark and finished seventh overall.

The World Championships is one of the final major tune-ups ahead of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, where Carolina head coach Curtis Frye will be part of Team USA’s coaching staff. The next World Championships meet will be held in London in 2017.