Felix “Super” Sanchez will be running in the finals of the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece today at 3:30pm. This is certainly the closest the Dominican Republic has come to a gold medal since boxer Pedro Julio Nolasco became the first Dominican to win an Olympic medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Sanchez, the world champion of the event, has posted the best times of the year and has been unbeatable in every race on the European Grand Prix circuit so far. With string of over 40 races without a defeat, Sanchez aspires to reach the heights of the great Edwin Moses. Sanchez will run with the number 1539 on his jersey in lane 6, one of the preferred lanes for the 400-meter distance. The chief rival for Sanchez, apart from a dose of over-confidence, may well come from USA’s James Carter, the only other runner in the finals with a time of under 48 seconds. Other Dominicans still in contention for a medal include Gabriel Mercedes, who starts his showdown in Tae Kwon Do against Mexico’s Francisco Salazar, a bronze medalist in the world competition in 1997. Mercedes won the DR a bronze in 1999. Another to watch in Athens is the DR’s Juana Arrendell, still an unknown factor until she takes the field in her event, the high jump. The qualifying height needed to make the finals is set at 1.95 meters, a height that Arrendell has not attained this year. According to Carlos Hernandez, the chief of the Dominican delegation, however, Arrendell has returned from her two months of training in Saint Petersburg in Belarus looking slimmer, stronger and much more confident.