By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

ZAMBIA’S promising sprinter, Sydney Siame yesterday crushed out of the ongoing 2014 IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships in the United States of America (USA) at semi-final stage after finishing sixth in his 100 metre race.
As Siame was bowing out in Oregon, two other Zambian youngsters, Shaddye Melu and Joseph Sinkala also got knocked out in the preliminary stage of the respective competitions, leaving the nation’s hopes on another budding runner, Brian Kasinda.
Siame, who stormed the semi-final after finishing third in his heat with a time of 10.56 seconds, found the next stage rough as he could only cross the line in sixth place in the first of the three tight semi-final races.
Apart from falling out, Siame also dropped on his time as he posted a time of 10.68 seconds, below his personal best time of 10.51 achieved in Botswana at the Africa Youth Games on May 28 this year.
The semi-final, described as the tightest of the three, was so tough for Siame that it produced four qualifiers to the final while the other two semi-final heats produced four finalists.
As if that was not enough, two of the qualifiers from his semi-finals went on win medals in the final where the winner in his heat,  USA’s Trayvon Bromell picked silver while Japanese Yoshihide Kiryu, the other qualifier, took bronze.
American Kendal Williams won the gold medal with a time of 10.21 seconds, which is now his personal best.
On his part, the USA-based Melu, who was representing Zambia for the first time, got knocked out at the first hurdle of the 400m after finishing last in his heat.
Melu, timed 48.78 seconds over the one lap race, which was way below his personal best of 47.25 seconds.
While Melu’s time was less impressive, there was reason for a light moment as Karl  Baldachino of Gibraltar timed 54.56 seconds which still went into the records as his personal best time.
The other Zambian at the World Junior Championships, Sinkala failed to come close his personal best in long jump after leaping a poor 6.88 metres and get eliminated in the preliminaries.
Sinkala’s personal best of 7.71m was the qualifying mark for the today’s final which was achieved only by Japanese Jianan Wang on 7.93m, forcing the world governing body, IAAF to pick the next 11 best jumps.
Sinkala still fell out of this bracket and only managed 6.88m during his third and last attempt, having not jumped at first and then leapt 6.35m.
Kasinda, who is Zambia’s brightest junior prospect, was last night expected to get into action in the 200m race.