RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL, Sporting Alert – There was a major disappointment for Jamaica on the first day of track and field competition at Rio 2016, with Discus thrower Fedrick Dacres failing to advance from the qualifying round in the opening session.
Also making an early exit from Rio 2016 is Olympic Games 800m silver medallist from London 2012, Nijel Amos of Botswana.
Dacres, who owns the fourth best mark on the 2016 performance list, with 68.02 metres, which is well above the auto qualifying standard for the final, at 65.50m.
However, the 22-year-old only recorded a standard of 50.69m in the third round of the qualifiers on Friday morning, which brought a huge disappointment in the camp, given that he was one of the athletes in the running for a podium place.
Dacres, the seventh-place finisher at the IAAF World Championships at Beijing 2015, fouled on his first two attempts.
He finished last in Group A, which included 17 throwers.
World champion Piotr Małachowski of Poland (65.89m), Austria’s Lukas Weißhaidinger (65.86) and Andrius Gudžius (65.18) of Lithuania all going over 65m, while the first two throwers went over the auto mark.
Meanwhile, Nijel Amos, who finished second to David Rudisha of Kenya in the world record record race in London, four-years-ago, will not add to his Olympic medal collection, after the 22-year-old faded badly and finished seventh in his heat of the men’s 800m in 1:50.46.
Rudisha, hunting his second Olympic 800m gold medal leads the way with a time of 1:45.09.
