(St. Fort in the center, poses with teammates Sarah Wollaston and men's100m dash winner Richard Thompson by her side and their coach and T&T Olympian Ato Boldon)
Khalifa St. Fort is coming off of a hamstring injury, but you wouldn't know it based on her performance at the Trinidad & Tobago Olympic Trials at Hasely Crawford Stadium. St. Fort, who trains under T&T Olympian Ato Boldon, was fourth in the 100m dash behind Michelle-Lee Ahye (11.00), Semoy Hackett (11.07), and Kelly-Anne Baptiste (11.07). St. Fort's time of 11.16 was a new personal best, improving on her 11.19 silver medal performance from the IAAF World Youth Championships, and a new junior national record. Boldon says the time is 2nd in the world for under 20 100s behind Candace Hill's 11.09, and is a great accomplishment for his young sprinter.
"This is still only her 6th 100 m final for the year. She is very under raced as I like to do with my young athletes. Khalifa ran a race in French Guyana that was 11.9. Her hamstring was a mess and we had two weeks to get ready for what we knew would be a tough Olympic Trials. So this race even though it's not what we would have wanted it is a victory for her because she's now back on the right track."
With that performance St. Fort punched her ticket to the Olympic Games in Rio and will be part of the 4x100m relay. She will have to wait and see about her chances to run the 100m dash as the top two finishers are guaranteed a spot with the third pick up to the country's federation. Coach Boldon doesn't believe she is the youngest ever to make the Olympics for the country, but at 18 and a half years old she is one of the youngest, a testament he says to just how talented she is.
"Let's just say that 4x1 relay is ready to medal with three sub 11.1 runners and Khalifa. I've said for a year Khalifa would be part of getting Trinidad and Tobago its first women's Olympic medal."
Before the Olympic Games in Rio, St. Fort and Born 2 Do It teammate Sarah Wollaston, a junior at Somerset Academy, will compete at the IAAF World U20 Championships (World Juniors) July 19-24 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. St. Fort will likely run the 1,2, and 4x100 while Wollaston leads off the relay. St. Fort was the silver medalist at the 2015 IAAF World Youth Championships.
Boldon says she's still not back to where she was when she won the Carifta Games in late March, but now she has the confidence to be at her best for the most critical races in her young career.
"The leg is not a concern so we can put in a good month and go to Poland for World Juniors and have another good meet. She's in the 200 today and she should PR there as well.She will come with me to USA Olympic Trials to train, and she will sit with us in the booth so she can experience her first USA Olympic Trials."