Lalang advances to 800-meter semifinals
Rend Lake College sophomore Boaz Lalang advanced to the semifinals of the Men’s 800-meter run at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, running the fifth best time of the day.
Lalang, running for his home country of Kenya, was 0.82 seconds behind fellow countryman Wilfred Bungei, who clocked the fastest time of the day (1:44.90). Russia’s Yuriy Borzakovskiy was second in 1:45.15, leading a pack of runners rounding out the Top 10.
Nadjim Manseur, of Algeria, was third (1:45.62) and Cuba’s Yeimer López was fourth (1:45.66), followed by Lalang (1:45.72).
The Top 24 runners now advance to the semifinals, which will be held Thursday night in the “Bird’s Nest,” China’s Indoor National Stadium.
Lalang’s race will be broadcast tonight at 7 p.m. on NBC. The semifinals will be held at 7:50 p.m. Thursday night, also on NBC. If Lalang advances to the finals, the race will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Lalang ran in the final heat of the day and it was the most competitive. Six of the eight runners advanced out of the heat.
The U.S. had one runner advance in the event, as Nick Symmonds qualified for the semifinals with the 11th best time (1:46.01).
Ireland’s Thomas Chamney, who sent a donation to the RLC Foundation to help fund Lalang’s trip back to Kenya to qualify for the Olympics, was fifth in his heat and did not qualify.
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Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 10:03 pm under