Brendon Rodney joins Usain Bolt in 200m semis

Digging deep in his first world championship race, Canada's Brendon Rodney advanced to the men's 200-metre semifinals with a superb performance in the opening round Tuesday in Beijing.

• Bolt breezes into 200m semis at worlds
• RESULTS: Track and field world championships
• BROADCAST SCHEDULE: Track and field worlds on CBC, CBCSports.ca

Running in Lane 7, the 23-year-old from Brampton, Ont., blasted through the bend and held his form down the home straight to finish third in his heat in a personal-best time of 20.18 seconds. His previous best was 20.27.

Zharnel Hughes, the 20-year-old training partner of Usain Bolt who was cleared to run for Great Britain this year, won the heat in 20.13 seconds, and Julian Forte of Jamaica was second in 20.16

Rodney's time was the sixth fastest overall in the first round, although favourites Bolt (20.28) and Justin Gatlin (20.19) eased up well ahead of the finish in their respective heats.

"I'm excited," Rodney said. "Now I just have to execute again tomorrow.

"The bend is always the strongest part of my race. I've been working on it this year, fixing the end of my race, and now it has all come together."

The semifinals go Wednesday at 8:30 am. ET, and can be seen live on CBCSports.ca.

Rodney, who is about to enter his fourth year at Long Island University in Brooklyn, N.Y., knows he must remain in top form to advance again.

"I'll have to run another PB to make it to the final," he said.

Brown bit by flu bug

Canada's other 200m entrant was Toronto's Aaron Brown, who struggled to a seventh-place finish in the fourth of seven heats.

Brown said he came down with the flu the night before, but insisted he will "definitely be good" for the 4x100m relay later in the week.

"I'm going to rest and take some medicine," he said. "I think it's a mixture of things, the air quality and maybe the food. I don't know. I just didn't have it today."

The relay team will almost certainly be anchored by Brown's teammate at the University of Southern California, Andre De Grasse, who electrified Canadians and piqued the interest of the international media with his bronze-medal performance in the 100m.

Brown said he has high aspirations for the relay team, which crossed the line first at last month's Pan Am Games before being disqualified for a lane violation.

"We've shown we can be medal contenders if we have clean passes and get through the zone," Brown said. "We can definitely medal."

Muir struggles in 400

Carline Muir was a surprise 400m semifinalist at the 2008 Olympics on this same track inside the Bird's Nest stadium, but has since struggled with injuries and the departure of her coach Kevin Tyler for the U.K.

She showed some of her old form in the first round by running a season-best time of 51.70 to get into Tuesday's semis before struggling to eighth place in 52.31. 

Muir suffered a stress fracture in her knee this year and only started training in May.

"After Kevin left it's been a downhill kind of road," she admitted. "I think as long as I'm healthy and I put the work in… I'll run fast next year."

"Honestly, I don't know why [injuries keep] happening to me. Maybe I'm cursed a little bit. But that seems to be getting better. I have to make sure I'm doing everything I need to do off the track to prepare for Rio."

Muir will next line up for the women's 4x400m relay heats, and declares the team is expecting good things.

"The girls are so excited," she said. "We feel we have a real chance of being in that final and getting a medal. They are pumped to run. They can't wait."