Justin Gatlin led a 1-2-3-4 US sweep in the 200m Thursday at the World Athletics Championships, the highlight of another great day for the Americans and the second gold of a possible triple for the 100m champion.
Michelle Perry won the 100m hurdles and triple jumper Walter Davis continued the golden US run even before Gatlin led Wallace Spearmon, defending champion John Capel and Tyson Gay across the line in 20.04 seconds.
Gatlin kneeled in celebration and put one finger up in the air, in case anyone in the 40,000-capacity Olympic Stadium still had a doubt he was the star of the championships.
PHOTO: AP
Afterward, all four sprinters huddled together in celebration.
Gatlin will seek a sprint triple during Saturday's final in the 400m relay.
Perry took the lead when Olympic champion and fellow American Joanna Hayes stumbled at the penultimate hurdle and won ahead of Jamaicans Delloreen Ennis-London and Brigitte Foster-Hylton.
"I knew today, whatever it took, I would win," said Perry, who will go back to combining hurdles with heptathlon next year. "It was my time regardless. I was strongest at the end."
Davis came out of nowhere to add another gold for the Americans with a season's best leap of 17.57m, edging Yoandri Betanzos of Cuba and Marian Oprea of Romania.
Rens Blom of the Netherlands denied another US gold when he won the pole vault with a jump of 5.80m, 5cm higher than Brad Walker. Russia's Pavel Gerasimov took bronze.
"I got lucky on 5.65," said Blom, who barely cleared his second attempt as the bar shot up, danced around and magically stayed put. "I was entitled to have some luck."
Defending champion Giuseppe Gibilisco of Italy, Australian 2001 world champion Dmitri Markov and 2000 Olympic champion Nick Hysong went out early in the competition.
Highlighting the US sprint domination, four-time and defending champion Allen Johnson was the first of three teammates making in the final of the 110m hurdles, setting the best time of all qualifiers with 13.23 seconds.
Behind Jamaica's Maurice Wignall, Terrence Trammell set the third time. France's Ladji Doucoure and Olympic champion Liu Xiang also qualified ahead of American Joel Brown, who took the last spot in the final.
Allyson Felix led a US trio into the women's final of the 200m.
France's Christine Arron led the qualifiers into the 200m final with the fastest time of 22.45 seconds, but 19-year-old Felix won her semifinal and Rachelle Boone-Smith and LaTasha Colander also went through, along with Olympic champion Veronica Campbell.
"I just didn't want to push it too hard, just wanted to get a good lane for the final," Felix said.
The US team has nine golds and a total of 15 medals. Ethiopia has two golds and a total of five, with Sweden in third place with two golds and a bronze.
Also, Franka Dietzsch of Germany won the gold medal in the women's discus, ahead of Natalya Sadova of Russia and Vera Pospisilova-Cechlova of the Czech Republic.
Moroccan-born Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain successfully continued the quest for a middle distance double, winning his 800m heat ahead of his South African rival Mbulaeni Mulaudzi less than 24 hours after taking gold in the 1,500m. Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy of Russia also easily advanced.
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