Jamaican athletics superstar Usain Bolt ran a track record 9.85 seconds in the 100m at an IAAF World Challenge meeting in Croatia on Tuesday, smashing longstanding American rival Tyson Gay’s mark of 9.92 seconds set last year.
The 25-year-old Olympic titleholder — who lost his world crown last month after being disqualified for a false start — eased away to win in what was for him also a season’s best time, though a fair bit off his world record of 9.58 seconds.
Thirty-five-year-old Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis, the 2003 world champion and bronze medalist at the worlds last month, finished second, while Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Thompson was third.
Photo: EPA
Collins clocked 10.01 seconds, while Thompson finished in 10.03 seconds.
Bolt, who nevertheless retained his world 200m crown and also anchored the Jamaican team to a world record in the 4x100m relay, said that he was not satisfied with his run overall because of a problem that has been dogging him all season.
BAD START
“I had a bad start, that’s the reason why I had lost concentration, a little bit. It was already happening to me this year, but I felt wonderful here,” Bolt said.
“I remember my last meeting here, in Zagreb [in 2006]. Then and tonight again, I had great support from the spectators,” he said.
Cuba’s Olympic champion Dayron Robles won the 110m hurdles in 13.00 seconds, which was also his season’s best.
World champion Jason Richardson of the US was second in 13.04 seconds.
“I did not expect such a good result,” said the Cuban, whose disqualification after winning the 110m hurdles final last month saw Richardson promoted to gold.
“While I was warming up, I felt tiredness, a muscle contraction, but at the stadium I felt excellent and if there were not these minor problems, maybe I would have run even better,” Richardson said.
In the women’s high jump, world champion Anna Chicherova did not allow Croatian darling, injury-hit Blanka Vlasic, to avenge her world championship defeat. They both jumped over 2m, but the Russian had less attempts. Ebba Jungmark of Sweden was third with 1.94m.
“I decided to attack 2.04 meters, but it turned out that I don’t have the speed for such a height. The problem is that my left leg is weaker than the right and I felt pain since warming up,” Vlasic told journalists.
“However, I cannot regret the defeat since the audience saw jumps over two meters which was not often this season. This season really tired me, there were injuries ... so I have to be happy that in such a condition I jumped over two meters in Zagreb,” she said.
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