Santos, Baisden clinch 400m gold in Toronto

London Olympics silver medallist Luguelin Santos clocked a season-best time on his way to Pan American Games gold in the men’s 400 metres in Toronto on Thursday.

Santos ran 44.56 seconds, 0.11secs slower than the Games record set by Ronnie Ray in 1975 but enough to earn him the gold ahead of Machel Cedenio (44.70secs) and Kyle Clemons (44.84secs).

The Dominican finished behind only Kirani James in the 400m final in London in 2012.

Kendall Baisden overcame a slow start to win the women’s 400m final in 51.27secs – registering the worst reaction time to the starter’s gun.

Baisden took 0.427secs to respond at the start, compared to silver medallist and fellow American Shakima Wimbley (0.180secs) – who finished 0.09secs back from the winner.

Jamaican 21-year-old Fedrick Dacres claimed Games gold in the men’s discus – his first medal of any kind at senior level – with a mark of 64.80m.

Clayton Murphy was another youngster to shine, the 20-year-old American winning the men’s 800m final in one minute, 47.19 seconds – edging out Colombia’s Rafith Rodriguez by 0.04secs.

Mexico’s Brenda Flores broke the Games record in the women’s 10,000m in 32:41.33 – adding to her silver in the 5,000m.

Damian Warner gave the host nation something to cheer about, winning gold in the men’s Decathlon on 86,59 points – capped with victory in the 1500m and 110m hurdles heat.

Bahamas’ Jeffery Gibson won the men’s 400m hurdles in a personal-best 48.51secs, and Yarisley Silva – who claimed silver at London 2012 – won the women’s pole vault with a Games-record mark of 4.85m.

History repeated in the football competition as Mexico beat Panama 2-1 in the men’s semi-finals – the same scoreline between the two nations’ senior sides in the CONCACAF Gold Cup from a day earlier.

This match had infinitely less controversy than the Gold Cup equivalent, with Carlos Cisneros striking a stunning winner for the Mexicans in the 61st minute – just moments after Panama had equalised.

Mexico will play Uruguay in the gold-medal match on Sunday, after the latter scored twice late to stun Brazil 2-1 – with Andres Schettino and Michael Santos scoring in the 86th and 87th minutes respectively.

United States added seven gold medals to their tally on Thursday to move to 224 (83 gold, 69 silver, 72 bronze) – well clear of hosts Canada’s 187 (69, 62, 56) with three days of action remaining.