AU IN THE OLYMPICS: Burns wins silver in 4x100-meter relay

Special to the News

Published: August 22, 2008

BEIJING — Marc Burns of Trinidad and Tobago became the third former member of the Auburn track and field team to win an Olympic medal in Beijing, earning a silver medal in the men’s 4x100-meter relay Friday.

Burns ran the second leg for Trinidad and Tobago, helping his team finish second with a time of 38.06 seconds, edging the team from Japan that finished third in 38.15. Jamaica won the race with a world-record time of 37.10.

Burns’ medal gives the former Tigers in attendance four medals at the Olympic Games thus far, as Kerron Stewart won a silver in the 100 meters and a bronze in the 200 meters, and Leevan Sands took the bronze medal in the triple jump.

Stewart had an excellent chance of earning her third medal of the Games in the women’s 4x100-meter relay Friday, but the favored Jamaicans were disqualified after a faulty second exchange.

There will be two former Tigers competing in the finals of the men’s 4x400-meter relay today. Avard Moncur ran in the second leg in Friday’s prelims for the Bahamas, and his team finished second overall with a time of 2:59.88.

Sanjay Ayre ran the third leg for Jamaica, helping his team to a time of 3:00.09, which ranked fourth overall.

Also on Friday, Maurice Smith of Jamaica finished ninth in the decathlon with 8,205 points.

Smith, who started the second day in 10th place, got off to a strong start, posting the fourth-best time in the 110m hurdles (14.08) followed by the second-best mark in the discus (50.91m), which moved him up to fifth place.

Smith was still fifth after the pole vault (4.60m), but a 22nd-place showing in the javelin (51.52m) dropped him to 12th place. He moved up to ninth with a seventh-place finish in the final event — the 1500m, posting a season-best time of 4:31.62.

After former, current and future Auburn swimmers took 13 medals, including three gold, during the swimming competitions last week, that gives Auburn 17 total medals.
If Auburn University were its own country, the school would be tied with Canada for 13th in most medals won.