LSU Track & Field was represented by 10 current and former athletes from five countries around the world as they joined the sports greatest athletes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the 2016 Olympic Games. Led by Fitzroy Dunkley (pictured, second from left) winning a silver medal with Jamaica in the 4x400meter relay, LSU’s athletes made three finals appearances with Jamaican teammate Damar Forbes advancing to his first Olympic final in the long jump and Kelly-Ann Baptiste running in the 4x100-meter relay final for Trinidad & Tobago.
GAMES OF THE
XXXI Olympiad
The final event of the 2016 Olympic Games saw LSU senior Fitzroy Dunkley score a silver medal as a member of Jamaica’s 4x400-meter relay team as he teamed with his fellow countrymen Peter Matthews, Nathon Allen and Javon Francis to run
KELLY-ANN BAPTISTE
18
2:58.16 for second place behind Team USA’s goldmedal-winning 2:57.30. Dunkley split 44.82 seconds on the third leg as he became LSU Track & Field’s 13th Olympic medalist in history while winning the program’s 17th Olympic medal all-time.
NICKIESHA WILSON
2020 TRACK & FIELD RECORD BOOK
It proved a fitting end to the 2016 season for Dunkley as his Olympic success followed his best collegiate season with the Tigers as he was a member of LSU’s NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor champion 4x400-meter relay teams while also being crowned the NCAA Outdoor Silver Medalist in the 400-meter dash. Dunkley actually made his Olympics debut on the opening night of the athletics program in Rio when he lined up in the qualifying round of the 400-meter dash. It would be another eight days before he returned to the track to score his first Olympic medal in the men’s 4x400-meter relay final. Dunkley was not the only one of LSU’s 10 Olympians to compete in a final at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad as former Lady Tiger Kelly-Ann Baptiste was a member of Trinidad & Tobago’s fifthplace 4x100-meter relay team and former Tiger NCAA Champion Damar Forbes competed in his first Olympic final in the long jump. Baptiste, who also lined up in the women’s 100meter dash while making her fourth career Olympic Games appearance, was the closest to Dunkley in adding to LSU’s medal haul when she helped her country run a seasonal best of 42.12 in the women’s sprint relay final. Forbes jumped 25 feet, 8 inches for 12th in the men’s long jump final. There were three members of LSU’s 2016 men’s and women’s teams who made their Olympic debuts that summer as Dunkley was also joined in Rio by Canadian hurdler Chanice Chase and British sprinter Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake. While Chase competed in the first round of the women’s 400-meter hurdles,
GABRIEL MVUMVURE
RICHARD THOMPSON
