Pleasantville’s Gabriel Moronta, running just 3-100ths of a second off his lifetime best, won the 400-meter dash at the XXV Juegos Centroamericanos y del Caribe Championships in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Moronta ran 44.70, his 2nd-fastest 400 ever, winning by more than a 3rd of a second over Luis Aviles of Mexico, who was 2nd in 45.06 in the Central American and Caribbean Games.
Moronta has now run sub-45 in his last three races and four of his last five. He’s ranked 36th in the world, and he’s 3rd-fastest in New Jersey alumni history behind Andrew Valmon of Manchester Township [44.28 in Eugene in 1993] and Willingboro’s Lamont Smith [44.30 in Atlanta in 1996].
Moronta, competing for the host Dominican Republic, just missed his PR of 44.67, which he ran when he won the Pan American Athletics Championships in Medellin, Columbia, on June 28.
Moronta is the 3rd-fastest 400 runner in Dominic Republic history. The national record is 44.11 by 2012 Olympic silver medalist Luguelin Santos when he placed 4th in the 2015 World Championships in Beijing.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 