FORMER Kingston College athlete, Leford Green, sent out an early warning to his rivals before the Jamaica Olympic Trials in June when he registered an impressive personal best of 45.56 seconds in the 400 metres at the Adidas Raleigh Meet at the North Carolina State University Track yesterday.

Green, a member of the Jamaica 4x400m team at last summer's World Outdoor Track and Field Championships and who had an outstanding indoor season for his team Johnson C. Smith, showed that he is still in great form as running in his first outdoor meet he ran on gallantly behind World outdoor 400m silver medallist Lashawn Merritt to finish second. Merritt, in winning the event, posted a world-leading time of 44.72.

Naturally Green was very excited with his new personal best which beat his 45.71 at last year's National Championships. "I am very happy that I have started my outdoor season on a positive note. Running well in the indoor season helped me very much as I did a lot of 200 metres and I am looking forward to even going faster, " said the Freshman at J.C. Smith.

His coach Lennox Graham, the man who guided him at KC, was also very elated."When someone does his or her personal best this is excellent. Hopefully Leford can stay healthy for the rest of the season and as long as he remains healthy then the sky is the limit for him," said Graham.

Graham also stated that Green was heading in the right direction and his improvement was due to a lot of 200 metres in his programme this season. According to him this had helped with his speed.

At yesterday's opening day of the two-day meet, which concludes today, there was also a good win for Aldrin Findlay. Findlay, who was a member of Jamaica's silver medal winning 4x400m team at last month's World Indoor Championships in Spain, captured the men's 400m hurdles in 49.69.

Former Alpha Academy athlete, Shermaine Williams, who also competes for Johnson C. Smith University, opened her outdoor season on a positive note as she qualified for today's 100m hurdles event by finishing third in her heat in 13.91.