Veteran coach Thomas Tellez still thinks Bermuda long jumper Tyrone Smith can make his mark at the Olympics.

But the 24-year-old will have to wait another four years to prove it.

The man who coached long jump legend Carl Lewis for some 20 years was impressed by the Bermudian's performance as he watched from the sidelines on Saturday night and he said afterwards: "If Tyrone had had just one more jump, he would have made the final. No doubt about it. He was improving with every jump.

"But I think he can be satisfied with the way he performed.

"Let's not forget he went into this competition ranked 40th out of 41 and he finished 15th.

"All in all, I think we can be pleased. He did a good job considering this was his first Olympics.

"He knows he's capable of a lot better. And he learned a lot."

As it was, the US-based athlete, who is coached by 75-year-old Tellez at Houston University where nine-time Olympic gold medallist Lewis runs his programme, finished well ahead of many of the event's most familiar names.

Among them were the American trio of Trevell Quinley, Brian Johnson and Miguel Pate, who all failed to reach the automatic qualifying distance for the final, 8.15 metres.

Tellez said he couldn't understand why so many talented long jumpers missed out.

Only three ¿ Greece's Louis Tsatoumas (8.27m), Ibrahim Camejo of Cuba (8.23m) and Britain's Greg Rutherford (8.16m) ¿ assured their spot in tomorrow's medal event, the rest having to wait until virtually the end of qualifying to find out whether they placed in the top 12.

"The conditions were very good," said Tellez. "There was no wind and the runway looked good. A lot of the athletes seemed tense, there were a lot of fouls.

"Tyrone showed he's very capable. He didn't have any fouls. I don't know what went wrong with his first jump (6.95m) but he got better with the next two (7.63m and 7.91m)."