The rain was everybody's enemy but Justin Gatlin's.
A torrential storm delayed the 200m quarterfinals and gave the 100m champion some much needed extra rest for his pursuit of three gold medals at the World Athletics Championships.
Ripped-off tree branches still riddled the park adjacent the Olympic Stadium and gusts of wind kept seagulls grounded when Allen Johnson qualified for the quarterfinals of the 110m hurdles early Wednesday, running into a strong headwind.
Against a top quality field, defending champion Johnson is seeking his fifth world crown but faces opposition from China's Olympic champion Liu Xiang, France's Ladji Doucoure and US teammate Terrence Trammell.
All qualified in the tough conditions but Johnson's time of 13.92 seconds was exactly a second slower than his world record.
"I'm glad it's over," he said.
Whether Yelena Isinbayeva gets another pole vault record in such inclement weather won't matter that much to the sellout crowd at the Olympic Stadium. For the Finns, the javelin is the main attraction.
The crowd of 40,000 will be roaring for Tero Pitkamaki, who only needed one throw to get into the final. Isinbayeva just took two perfect jumps to reach her final, where the only question for most is whether she will beat her mark of 5.00m.
Swirling winds already dumb-founded several pole vaulters during the men's qualifying on Tuesday. Add in a wet runway and other vaulters might just have a chance to get close to the overpowering Russian.
The 23-year-old serial world record breaker could add a US$160,000 payday if she sets the 18th world mark of her career.
The javelin has held the Nordic nation spellbound for decades, and Finnish men have won 10 Olympic and world titles between them. Pitkamaki is the year's leading performer and needed only one throw on Tuesday to advance from qualifying, with Sergey Makarov of Russia and Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen as his major challengers.
The javelin will take the spotlight off Gatlin, who will try to reach the final of the 200m on his way to a possible triple-gold championships. He runs the 400m relays on Sunday's final day.
The decathlon was among the many events that suffered from a nearly two-hour delay when an electrical storm off the Baltic Sea swept across the stadium, chasing away thousands of fans and sending athletes into the dressing rooms.
When they finally came back, Bryan Clay of the US staved off Olympic champion and world record-holder Roman Sebrle by a slim margin at the halfway point in the decathlon.
The battle to become the world's greatest athlete ends with the 1,500m later Wednesday -- weather permitting. At the end of Tuesday, the American had 4,527 points, 14 points ahead of Sebrle, who had 4,513.
Running in driving rain, former Kenyan Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar retained his world championship steeplechase title, again frustrating Kenyan attempts to reclaim an event they consider their own.
Also, two-time defending champion Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic pulled up with an injured hamstring after one hurdle in the 400m, allowing Bershawn Jackson to lead a 1-2 US finish with James Carter.
If Shaheen's victory was predictable, gold for Cuba's Zulia Calatayud in the 800m was not. She came out of nowhere off the final bend to win, denying the favored Russians. Hasna Benhassi of Morocco was second and Russia's Tatyana Andrianova managed bronze. Double defending champion Maria Mutola finished fourth.
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