Dayron Robles' world record in the 110m hurdles took the focus off Usain Bolt's bid to increase his status as the world's fastest man at the Golden Spike meet on Thursday night.
Robles clocked 12.87 seconds, taking 0.01 seconds off the previous mark set by China’s Olympic and world champion Liu Xiang (劉翔) in 2006 at Lausanne. Robles was well clear of the field, beating Terrence Trammell of the US into second place at 13.21 and Ukraine’s Sergey Demiduk into third in 13.42.
The 21-year-old Robles, born in Cuba’s eastern province of Guantanamo, just missed the podium by finishing fourth at the world championships last year and does not have a major international medal. But now he appears to be one of Cuba’s best hopes for the Beijing Olympics.
PHOTO: AP
“It is such a good time, I did not expect that. Wow!” Robles said. “Thanks Ostrava! I am very happy and satisfied. I do not know if I can beat Liu Xiang in Beijing now. But we will see.”
Robles won seven of eight races over 60m during the indoor season until a disappointing seventh at the World Indoor Championships in March, when he was late out of the blocks because he thought there had been a false start.
He was 2-2 in head-to-heads with Liu in the 110m hurdles last year, when he set his previous personal best of 12.92 in finishing fifth at the World Athletics Finals at Stuttgart.
Now his record puts extra pressure on Liu, who is China’s biggest hope for gold on the track at the Beijing Games and has been hampered by a sore hamstring.
Bolt won the 200m in 19.83 seconds, a world leading time for the season in his first appearance in his favorite event this year. But he was a half second outside what he needed to set world records in consecutive meets.
Bolt, who set the 100m world record at 9.72 last month in New York, is yet to decide whether to run 100m or 200m in Beijing.
Croatia’s world champion Blanka Vlasic produced her season’s best high jump performance at 2.05m. She set the bar at 2.1m, 1cm over the world record, but missed three times.
Jeremy Wariner, the Olympic and world champion over 400m, tackled the 300m world record but at 31.72 was well outside the mark of 30.85 set by his mentor Michael Johnson in 2000.
Dire Tune of Ethiopia has set a world best in the women’s one-hour race by running 18.517km, improving the previous mark of 18.34km set in 1998 by Tegla Loroupe of Kenya. The Boston Marathon champion completed the rarely run race on Thursday in warm weather at the Ostrava stadium, using four-pace setters.
Tirunesh Dibaba, who set the women’s world record in the 5,000m last week, won the 10,000m in 31 minutes, 03.37 seconds, well off record pace.
In other results, Derek Atkins of the Bahamas won the 100m at 10.08 from Brian Dzingai of Zimbabwe and Paul Capel of the US.
In the 100m hurdles, Lolo Jones of the US won at 12.69 seconds, beating compatriot Candice Davies, who stayed 0.11 seconds behind.
Christine Obergofoll of Germany won the javelin at 67.72m, upsetting local favorite Barbora Spotakova, who finished second at 66.91m.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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