Aaron Brown of Toronto, Ontario won the bronze medal in a Diamond League event in Doha, Qatar on Friday. In the opening Diamond League event of the 2019 track and field season, Brown posted a third place time of 20.2 seconds.
Brown earned a podium spot by a hundredth of a second over Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago. Ramil Guliyev of Turkey (the reigning world champion) won the gold medal with a time of 19.99 seconds. Alex Quinonez of Ecuador won the silver medal with a time of 20.19 seconds.
It should be noted that Brown ran .12 seconds faster than his silver medal winning time of 20.34 seconds that he posted at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. At that competition, Brown finished behind Richards, who won the Commonwealth title with a winning time of 20.12 seconds.
Brown’s personal best in the men’s 200 metres is at 19.98 seconds. That was accomplished at the 2018 Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway. Like the event in Doha, the Bislett Games are part of the Diamond League Series.
It should be noted that American star Noah Lyles was not competing in Qatar. Lyles had the fastest time in 2018 when he ran to a winning time of 19.65 seconds at a Diamond League event in Monaco. The current world’s best sprinters are still far behind the all-time world record holder, Usain Bolt of Jamaica, who holds the mark at 19.19 seconds. The bronze medal should however give Brown confidence as he prepares for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
