18 August,2009 04:07 PM IST | | AFP
Olympic champion Lashawn Merritt and two-time defending world champion Jeremy Wariner sauntered through their 400 metres first round heats at the World Athletic Championships on Tuesday.
While they had the luxury of going through the motions, their two teammates Lionel Larry and Gil Roberts struggled with the former only making it through as one of the three fastest losers while the latter crashed out.
Merritt, silver medalist behind Wariner in the 2007 world final, strolled through a high quality heat in 45.23sec ahead of Australia's Commonwealth Games champion John Steffensen and Democratic Republic of Congo's three-time world semi-finalist Gary Kikaya.
Wariner coasted in his heat as he and Jamaica's Olympic semi-finalist Ricardo Chambers ran shoulder to shoulder down the finishing straight with the 25-year-old American edging it on the line.
Britain's 2005 European Under-23 champion Robert Tobin had got the heats off to a good start with an easygoing victory over Ireland's two-time European indoor champion David Gillick.
Gillick, a former Gaelic footballer, has dreams of making the final and an outside chance of a medal after performing well on the circuit this season including second in the Rome Golden League meeting and a third at the high class Monaco Grand Prix.
Larry was the disappointment of the race, finishing only fourth, but the 22-year-old at least managed something he had failed to do in two previous championship appearances, at the Pan American Games and 2007 worlds, by reaching the second round.
Bahamas veteran Chris Brown got his campaign off to a winning start as he searches for an elusive medal at a championships having failed on four previous occasions, including the last two world championships and last year's Olympics.
His teammate Ramon Miller also won his heat in the fastest time of the round of 45sec dead, but Roberts never got into his stride and finished fifth.
The final heat went to the imposing looking 21-year-old from the US Virgin Islands Tabarle Henry, who could well improve on his semi-final appearance at the Olympics by making the final here in what apart from Merritt and Wariner looks a weak field.
