Ramon Miller wins heat, sets pace with personal-best time in 400

• Ramon Miller

Ramon Miller

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BERLIN — Former Dickinson State standout Ramon Miller won the fifth heat and set the pace in the men’s 400-meter dash on Tuesday at the IAAF World Athletics Championships.

The 22-year-old Miller, running for the Bahamas national team, clocked a personal-best time of 45 seconds, which was also the top time of the heat round at Olympic Stadium. Leslie Djohne of France was second in the heat at 45.20 seconds.

LeShawn Merritt, the Olympic gold-medal winner last year in Beijing, had the fastest time amongst Americans at 45.23 seconds.

The 400 semifinals begin at 9:15 a.m. MDT Wednesday. Miller will be up against Djohne again, along with Olympic silver-medalist Jeremy Wairner of the United States in the first heat.

The fastest two runners in each of the three heats, plus the runners with the two fastest times after that, advance to the finals at 12:20 p.m. MDT on Friday.

Miller will also compete for the Bahamas in the 1,600 relay on Saturday.

Another former DSU standout, Derrick Atkins, withdrew from competition in the 200 after a subpar showing in the 100 last weekend.

Bahamas team manager Ralph McKinney told the Nassau Guardian that “(Atkins) realizes that he did not do what he anticipated and he was not able to move forward. … I spoke to him about competing in the 200, he said that he was not prepared for it.”

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