Games of the XXXI Olympiad

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.

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 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.

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,

NETHANEEL MITCHELL-BLAKE (right) DAMAR FORBES

DID YOU KNOW? Former Lady Tiger sprinter Kelly-Ann Baptiste made her fourth Olympic Games appearance when she lined up for Trinidad & Tobago in both the 100 meters and 4x100-meter relay at the Rio Olympics. Baptiste made her Olympics debut as a teenager at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

Mitchell-Blake advanced to the semifinal round of the men’s 200 meters in his first appearance with Team GB as one of his country’s up-and-coming stars.

Mitchell-Blake actually received international attention just months before when he sprinted to a personal best of 19.95 and captured the title of SEC Outdoor Champion in the 200-meter dash among his three event wins at the 2016 SEC Outdoor Championships. He was just one one-hundredth of a second off of John Regis’ British record of 19.94 in as one of the world’s best sprinters for 2016.

Dunkley, Chase and Mitchell-Blake were not the only LSU athletes to compete in their first Olympic Games in Rio as former NCAA 800-meter champion Natoya Goule joined her Jamaican teammates and former Tiger sprinter Gabriel Mvumvure lined up in the men’s 100 meters for his native Zimbabwe.

Rounding out LSU’s Olympic roster at the Rio Games was former NCAA Champion hurdler Nickiesha Wilson making her third career Olympics appearance for Jamaica and former Lady Tiger sprinter Semoy Hackett of Trinidad & Tobago. Wilson had run the 400 hurdles for her native Jamaica in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, but took to the track in the sprint hurdles for the first time in Rio de Janeiro.

Each of these athletes added to an already proud tradition for the LSU Track & Field program at the Olympic Games that includes 62 different athletes representing 17 different nations since Sid Bowman became the first to compete for the United States in Amsterdam way back in 1928. Since then, LSU’s athletes have won 17 Olympic medals all-time, including seven gold, six silver and four bronze medals. Zimbabwe became the 17th country represented by an LSU Track & Field athlete when Mvumvure qualified for the first time in 2016 as other nationalities include Algeria, Bahamas, Barbados, Canada, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Liberia, The Netherlands, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts & Nevis, Sweden, Trinidad & Tobago and the United Kingdom along with the United States.

OLYMPICS PARTICIPATION

SCHOOL Oregon Texas A&M Arkansas Florida LSU Georgia Florida State Texas ATHLETES 16 16 15 13 10 10 10 9

LSU ATHLETES AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

ATHLETE Kelly Baptiste (Trinidad & Tobago) Chanice Chase (Canada) Fitzroy Dunkley (Jamaica) Damar Forbes (Jamaia) Natoya Goule (Jamaica) Semoy Hackett (Trinidad & Tobago) Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake (United Kingdom) Gabriel Mvumvure (Zimbabwe) Richard Thompson (Trinidad & Tobago) Nickiesha Wilson (Jamaica) EVENT 27th-100 Meters, 5th-4x100 Relay 47th-400 Hurdles 24th-400 Meters, 2nd-4x400 Relay 12th-Long Jump 25th-800 Meters 16th-100 Meters, 20th-200 Meters 11th-200 Meters 37th-100 Meters 40th-100 Meters, 4x100 Relay 19th-100 Hurdles