ALTHOUGH he did not make the outright qualifying time, Southeast Asian Games men’s 400-meter hurdles king Eric Cray collected enough ranking points to earn a ticket to the 19th World Athletics Championships scheduled Aug. 19 to 27 in Budapest, Hungary.
“Eric was able to amass enough points to barge into the top 40 of the world rankings of his event under the next best category,” athletics secretary general Edward Kho said yesterday.
Cray, who kept his men’s 400-meter hurdles crown for the sixth straight time in the Cambodia Southeast Asian Games last May, most likely earned the needed points when he finished third in his pet event in 50.59 seconds at the True Athletes Classic last July 29 in Leverkusen, Germany.
With the top 40 in the World Athletics rankings booking places to the worlds, he was ranked 39th with 1,191 points, a day before the cut-off date of July 30.
The qualifying standard for the men’s 400-meter hurdles is 48.70 seconds.
Based in San Antonio, Texas, Cray join pole vaulter Ernest John Obiena and 400-meter hurdler Robyn Lauren Brown, who both bagged golds in the Asian championships in Bangkok, Thailand last month, as the country’s representatives to the blue-ribbon competition in the Hungarian capital.
Cray will compete in the heats of the men’s 400-meter hurdles on Aug. 20 at the 36,000-seat National Athletics Center, according to Kho.
Brown will see action in the women’s 400-meter hurdle heats on Aug. 21 while Obiena opens his campaign on Aug. 23 in the men’s pole vault qualifiers.
“This is the first time we will have as many as three entries to the worlds so this a huge milestone for the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association under the leadership of sir Terry Capistrano,” Kho noted. “We wish them all the best in Budapest.”
