Russian pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva thrilled an adoring crowd with her winning jump at Saturday’s Shanghai Golden Grand Prix despite failing in her bid to beat her own world record.
She was one of several Olympic champions who returned to China after winning gold in Beijing for the one-day International Association of Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) post-season event.
Isinbayeva, who won clearing 4.6m, blew kisses to the stands as she climbed off the mat.
PHOTO: AP
The greatest-ever female pole vaulter had said she wanted to make history in Shanghai but warned at a pre-event news conference that fatigue might prevent her from her world record of 5.05m in Beijing.
Beijing bronze-medalist David Oliver, fresh from winning the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart a week earlier, won the 110m hurdles in 13.25 seconds.
A foot injury had forced Olympic champion Dayron Robles to withdraw at the last minute and hometown hero Liu Xiang stayed away while he recovers from a long-term heel injury.
But Chinese hurdler Xie Wenjun helped restore fans’ faith, placing second with 13.47 seconds.
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell also stayed away, but their countrymen dominated the men’s 100m with Michael Frater crossing the line at 10.05 seconds and Nesta Carter coming a close second.
Their fellow Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown followed up her Beijing gold medal-winning performance by winning the women’s 100m, with a time of 11.01 seconds, beating American Lauryn Williams by 0.25 seconds.
Jamaican Shericka Williams, who took Olympic silver in the women’s 400m last month, beat Beijing gold medalist Christine Ohuruogu with a time of 50.88 seconds. Ohuruogu placed fourth with a time of 51.31.
In another post-Games rematch, US silver medallist shot putter Christian Cantwell beat Poland’s Tomasz Majewski — who won gold in Beijing — by throwing 20.84m on his sixth throw. Cantwell won by nearly half a meter.
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