Keston Bledman

Keston Bledman
Keston Bledman at the 2012 London Olympics
nation	Trinidad and Tobago
birthday	March 8, 1988
place of birth	Port of Spain , Trinidad and Tobago
size	1.78 cm
Weight	88 kg
Career
discipline	100 m , 200 m , 4 × 100 m
Trainer	Gunness Persad, Lance Brauman
status	active
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 1 × 0 × Youth World Cup 0 × 1 × 1 ×
Olympic games gold 2008 Beijing 4 × 100 m silver 2012 London 4 × 100 m Youth World Championships bronze 2005 Marrakech 100 m silver 2005 Marrakech Mixed season
last change: February 14, 2013

Keston Bledman (born March 8, 1988 in Port of Spain , Trinidad and Tobago ) is an athlete from Trinidad and Tobago.

Keston was born to Visca and Kenny Bledman. His mother moved to the United States when he was five years old. He began to train seriously for athletics at an early age and was accepted into his club by Gunness Persad, who is his trainer to this day. In 2005 he competed in his first international competition. At the Youth World Championships in Marrakech, he won gold with 10.55 s. The following year he won both the Junior CARIFTA Games and the CAC Youth Championships . At the Junior World Championships in Beijing , however, it was only enough for seventh place. In 2007 he won gold at the Pan American Junior Championships in 10.32 seconds ahead of eventual world champion Yohan Blake .

Bledman at the 2007 World Championships

At the age of only 19 he started as the youngest of the three sprinters from Trinidad and Tobago at the World Championships in Osaka . After he had won his preliminary run, he was eliminated in the quarterfinals with 10.33 s in sixth place of his run. At the Olympic Games in Beijing he won the gold medal in the 4 x 100 meter relay with his fellow runners in a time of 38.06 s. A year later he could not qualify for the individual start at the World Cup in Berlin, but ran in the preliminary stages of the relay competition, where his compatriots won silver in the final. In October 2009 he traveled to Florida to work with well-respected trainer Lance Brauman. Since then he has lived alternately in Trinidad and Tobago and in Clermont (Florida).

In 2011 it ran in Clermont with 9.93 s for the first time under 10 seconds. At the World Championships in Daegu he did not make it to the final again, this time just failed in the semifinals with a time of 10.14 s. The following year he improved his best on May 26th in Orlando to 9.89 s, at the Diamond League Meeting in New York he was second behind Yohan Blake with 9.93 s and ran for the third time under 10 seconds. On June 23, he set his new personal best in Port of Spain with 9.86 s and is now the second fastest sprinter from Trinidad and Tobago behind Richard Thompson (9.85 s). With the victory in the Trials , he also qualified for the 2012 Olympics in London. There he was eliminated, as at the 2011 World Championships, in ninth place in the semi-finals. His 10.04 seconds were only enough for fourth place in his run. As in Beijing in 2008, he was able to win a medal in the relay competition. With him as the starting runner and Marc Burns , Emmanuel Callender and Richard Thompson, Trinidad and Tobago won bronze in 38.12 seconds behind Jamaica and the USA. Due to a positive doping test at Tyson Gay , the relay was subsequently awarded the silver medal in May 2015.

At the 2013 World Championships in Moscow , he missed the final with 10.08 seconds as the eleventh fastest in the semifinals, as in 2011.

Personal best

discipline	time	date	place
60 meters (hall)	6.62 s	February 11, 2012	new York
100 meters	9.86 s (+1.4 m / s)	June 23, 2012	Port of Spain
200 metres	20.73s (−0.7 m / s)	June 3, 2008	Lappeenranta

Web links

• Keston Bledman in the database of World Athletics (English)
• IAAF.org: Focus on athletes - Keston Bledman ( Memento from December 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.leichtathletik.de/index.php?NavID=1&SiteID=28&NewsID=38813
2. ↑ US season loses silver medal , sport1.de from May 14, 2015.