Muhd Noor Firdaus Ar-Rasyid bin Haji Idris in a group photo prior to his departure. – INSTAGRAM
BRUNEI Darussalam national sprinter Muhd Noor Firdaus Ar-Rasyid bin Haji Idris yesterday competed in the 200m event in the IAAF World Athletics Championships London 2017 at 7.18pm UK time at the London Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The national sprinter was allocated in Heat 7 in the heats stage alongside Japan’s Shota Iizuka, Great Britain’s Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Canada’s Aaron Brown, South Africa’s Clarence Munyai, Guyana’s Winston George and Montserrat’s Julius Morris.
According to the IAAF start list, Muhd Noor Firdaus’s season best currently stands at 21.66, just shy of his personal best and the national record of 21.64s.
The short-distance specialist entered the heats with the slowest fastest time in his group with the Briton Mitchell-Blake the quickest with a mind-blowing 19.95s and perhaps the slight favourite of advancing to the semi-finals.
However, Muhd Noor Firdaus entered the competition with some confidence as part of the Bruneian team that clinched bronze in the Singapore Open and silver in the Malaysia Open.
The Bruneian came to his heats as big underdogs with a time outside the 20-second mark but avoided stellar names with former 100m world champion Yohan Blake in Heat 1.
With sprint king Usain Bolt retiring after this World Championships after dominating the sport for many years; Yohan will be looking for glory in a change of event since the 2011 championships in Daegu.
The Jamaican’s sprinter will be one of the big names expected for a podium finish with his personal best of 19.26s the second fastest time in the world after Bolt who is currently the record holder of 19.19s.
Muhd Noor Firdaus Ar-Rayid still faced stern competition having to race against Iizuka whose biggest achievement came in Rio Olympics as part of the Japanese team that won silver in the 4x100m relay.
The Japanese star is also a former World Junior Championships gold medallist which he won in Moncton, Canada in 2010.
Mitchell-Blake, performing in front of a home crowd in East London, also carried pedigree in the competition as a former European Junior Championships champion which he won in Rieti, Italy in 2013.
Aaron Brown also holds a commendable record as part of the Canadian team which won bronze in the Rio Olympics and also boasted two World Championships bronze in the 4x100m relay in Moscow in 2013 and Beijing in 2015.
The Canadian also coincidentally shared the same track against Iizuka in the 200m finals of the World Junior Championships when the latter clinched gold.
At 19 years of age, Clarence Munyai, who represented his country in the Rio Olympics, entered the heats as the youngest competitor.
Muhd Noor Firdaus also raced against a competitor who was in the same surroundings as the Bruneian with the pair both making an appearance in the Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan.
