Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt outsprinted fellow Jamaican Nickel Ashmeade and the US’ Justin Gatlin to win the 100m at the Zurich Diamond League meeting on Thursday.
Bolt, running into a slight headwind, made his customary sluggish start before accelerating away from the field to win in 9.90 seconds.
Ashmeade was second in 9.94, with former Olympic and world champion Gatlin two hundredths of a second further back. Gatlin finished second behind Bolt at this month’s Moscow world championships.
Another Jamaican, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who became the first woman to sweep the world 100m, 200m and 4x100m sprint titles in Moscow, won the 200m in 22.40 seconds.
Fifteen Diamond Race trophies were awarded, along with the US$40,000 first prize accompanying them, before a capacity crowd of 26,000.
The US’ world champion LaShawn Merritt defeated Grenada’s 2011 world gold medalist Kirani James in the men’s 400m to add US$40,000 to his bank balance.
Meseret Defar won the battle of the Ethiopians in the women’s 5,000m, beating compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba to the finish in 14 minutes, 32.83 seconds.
Dibaba took the 10,000m gold medal in Moscow, but opted out of the 5,000m, which Defar won with ease.
On Thursday, Dibaba took the lead with 600m to run, only to see Defar ease past her on the final bend.
Ukrainian world high jump champion Bohdan Bondarenko, who has been edging closer this season to Javier Sotomayor’s world record of 2.45m, which has stood since 1993, failed with an attempt on the Cuban’s mark after winning the event on a countback with 2.33m.
New Zealand’s world and Olympic champion Valerie Adams won the women’s shot put, which was staged in the city’s main railway station on Wednesday.
Adams set a meeting record and a year’s personal best of 20.98m.
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