With Liu Xiang gone, Usain Bolt made sure one superstar kept going on the Olympic track yesterday, easily qualifying for the 200m semi-finals in his search for a golden triple.
In muggy conditions at the Bird’s Nest, the 100m champion and world record holder never pushed himself to win his quarter-final heat ahead of Olympic gold medalist Shawn Crawford, mock-wiping pearls of sweat off his brow after the race.
The semi-finals are set for today, with Crawford among the few believed to have a chance at stopping Bolt’s quest for a 100m-200m double, a feat last achieved by Carl Lewis at the 1988 Seoul Games.
PHOTO: EPA
In the sharpest of contrast, Liu pulled out of the Olympics before clearing his first hurdle yesterday, suffering “intolerable” pain in his right leg in front of a stunned crowd.
If Liu’s fate was shocking, nothing was more predictable than a Kenyan winning the steeplechase — for the seventh time in a row.
Brimin Kipruto, the Athens silver medalist and reigning world champion, rallied to beat Maheidine Mekhissi-Benabbad, a Frenchman who split up an expected Kenyan sweep by taking silver ahead of Richard Mateelong.
Athens champion Ezekiel Kemboi faded to finish in seventh place.
After a horrible start to the track competition, the US got their first gold — an unexpected one — from Stephanie Brown Trafton in the discus.
The 28-year-old Brown Trafton, only third at the US trials, won with a best mark of 64.74m.
Yarelys Barrios of Cuba, a bronze medalist at the last world championships, took silver at 63.64m and Olena Antonova of Ukraine was third at 62.59m.
US athletes equally looked good in the women’s 100m hurdles, with LoLo Jones setting the year’s best time and a personal best to advance into the final. As controlled as Jones soared over the hurdles, as sloppy was European champion Susanna Kallur.
The Swede crashed straight into the first hurdle and fell to the ground, finishing her comeback attempt after a season marred by injury.
“I had my leg under the hurdle instead of on top,” Kallur said.
World and defending champion Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt kept on track for their golden clash in the 400m, both easily going through into today’s semi-finals. Both jogged home to win their heats.
“No surprise. He’s ready, I’m ready,” Merritt said.
The pair of US sprinters finished first and second at last year’s world championships and own the year’s two best times. Wariner has said he intends to break the world record of 43.18 seconds of Michael Johnson — who now serves as his manager.
The 400m semi-finals are today, the final on Thursday.
In the final events of the evening Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia broke her own women’s pole vault world record. She cleared 5.05m, beating the previous mark of 5.04m she had set last month, after taking gold in the event.
World champion Irving Saladino of Panama won the gold medal in the men’s long jump. Saladino’s leap of 8.34m was enough to stay ahead of South Africa’s Khotso Mokoena who managed 8.24m.
Cuban Ibrahim Camejo’s sixth-round jump of 8.20m earned him the bronze medal.
Angelo Taylor of the US won the men’s 400m hurdles gold with a time of 47.25 seconds. The 29-year-old led an American clean sweep as world champion Kerron Clement took silver in 47.98 seconds and 2005 world champion Bershawn Jackson filled bronze in a time of 48.06 seconds.
In the women’s 800m final Kenya’s Pamela Jelimo won the gold in 1 minute, 54.87 seconds, with compatriot Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei taking silver and Morocco’s Hasna Benhassi taking the bronze.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later