Chandra Sturrup and Maria Mutola kept their Golden League winning streaks -- and US$1 million jackpot hopes -- alive, while Maurice Greene had his hopes of a fifth straight victory in Rome snapped Friday.
The Bahamian sprinter Sturrup captured the 100m at the Golden Gala in a year-best time of 10.89 seconds, while US champion Kelli White finished runner-up for the third straight week in the Golden League, where winners of the same event in each meet share a lucrative prize.
Rome is the third of six meets in the prestigious series.
"I know that now the jackpot is not just a dream," Sturrup said. "I think if I start thinking about it I'll lose focus."
Mozambique's Mutola executed the tactics in her 800m race perfectly, looking back at Slovakian challenger Jolanda Ceplak after passing her about 20m before the finish. Mutola won in a meet-record 1:57.21.
"I'm just pleased with this run," Mutola said. "It's going to be tougher from now on."
Former world-record holder Greene, who had declared Thursday that he would run under 10 seconds, finished a disappointing third in 10.09. Fellow American John Capel, back running after two years as a wide receiver for the University of Florida football team, won in 10.04, leading an all-American sweep of the first three places.
"The start didn't go as I planned," Greene said. "In the end I felt like I was coming on strong but [Capel] just ran a great race today."
Capel pronounced himself "back" after his football hiatus.
"The feeling to beat Maurice Greene and Bernard Williams is enormous," he said. "It feels like the two-year rest didn't hurt me that much. I've never been good at 100m, so you can't ask for much more than that.
"I wanted to get out with Bernard because he's a great starter. As long as I got out strong, I could beat Bernard in the middle. I'm a 200m guy, I know once I stand up I've got it."
Top British sprinter Dwain Chambers came in fourth in the 100m.
In the most thrilling race of the evening, Kenya's Abraham Chebii captured the 5,000m in 12:57.14, outsprinting rising Ethiopian star Kenenisa Bekele in the final 100 meters while world-record holder Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia looked on from third position.
As soon as the pacemakers retired after 3,000m, the race was between the three Africans. Bekele led, with his protege in pursuit and Chebii slightly further back. As the trio rounded the final turn, the 30-year-old Gebrselassie offered an abbreviated shake of his head as if to say he couldn't keep up and the 23-year-old Chebii and 21-year-old Bekele headed for the line in a two-man duel.
As the pair quickened the pace, Chebii's longer legs seemed to give him some extra speed to clinch the victory.
In other events at the Stadio Olimpico, three-time world champion Allen Johnson captured the 110 hurdles for the second week in a row, finishing in 13.08, slightly slower than his season-best time of 12.97 set in Paris a week ago.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier