By BRENT STUBBS

Chief Sports Editor

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net    

WITH all that she’s gone through, Anthonique Strachan was delighted to walk away with the women’s 200 metre gold medal at the North American, Central American and Caribbean Championships.

The 31-year-old Strachan, who has suffered a series of injuries, was one of The Bahamas’ two gold medallists at the championships that was staged from Friday to Sunday at the Grand Bahama Sports Complex in Grand Bahama.

The other came from World Championship qualifier Kaiwan Culmer, who won his first major international gold medal in the men’s triple jump just before Strachan pulled off her triumph on the track.

After struggling at the start of the race, Strachan turned on the burners as she surged back off the final curve and on the home stretch to win the 200m title on Saturday in a time of 22.77 seconds.

“I felt very good running the 200 metres here in The Bahamas,” Strachan said. “Even though I didn’t make the time standard, I’m pretty sure I’m still in the quota. Winning the 200m here also put me in a better standings for the quota.”

World Athletics is expected to release the names of those athletes who didn’t officially qualify, but would be invited this week to compete in the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan. The World Championships is scheduled for September 13-21 and Strachan is hoping that she will get another chance to compete after she did the last one in Budapest, Hungary in 2023 where she was sixth in the 200.

Strachan needed to run 22.57 to automatically qualify for the championships, but she admitted that if she didn’t experience the problems she had at the start of the race and coming through the transition off the curve, she would have been able to achieve the feat.

“In moving forward, I will just go back to Italy and try to sharpen myself in the hopes that the Bahamas adds me to the team because I am in the quota,” Strachan said. 

“I hope that I can get an invite from World Athletics and just improve from there so that I can make the final in Tokyo for the 200m.”

So far, only collegians Anthaya Charlton and Camille Rutherford have surpassed the qualifying standard for the 100m of 11.07 and Javonya Valcourt for the 400m in 50.75 on the women’s side.

Strachan, the 2012 World Under-20 100 and 200m champion and 2011 Pan American Junior Championships’ 200m gold medalist and 100m bronze medalist, is still looking for her first major international medal as a senior. 

Although she’s been hampered by a series of injuries during her career, the three-time Olympian has posted a lifetime best of 22.15 that she ran on May 28, 2023.