Olympic champion Usain Bolt and reigning world champion Tyson Gay cruised into the semi-finals of the men’s 100m on the opening day of the World Athletics Championships on Saturday.
The second gold of the meeting went to Kenya’s Linet Chepkwemoi Masai, who broke a 12-year Ethiopian stranglehold on the women’s 10,000m.
The US team also got its bandwagon rolling when Christian Cantwell won the men’s shot put title ahead of Poland’s Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski, with home favorite Ralf Bartels taking bronze.
PHOTO: EPA
In sultry conditions at the Olympic Stadium, it was Bolt’s teammate and former world record holder Asafa Powell, however, who set the pace in the 100m.
The bronze medalist from 2007 in Osaka looked very comfortable when racing home to win his quarter-final in 9.95 seconds and refused to ease up as he had done in the opening heats when he was beaten into third.
“I’m fine. I just wanted to get through the day,” Powell said. “The first round in the morning I was just running too easy and I underestimated the other guys.”
Bolt was beaten into second in his heat by training partner Daniel Bailey of Antigua, with the two sprinters easing up and even laughing together as they crossed the line in just over 10 seconds.
“I’m tired. It’s been an exhausting day,” Bolt said.
In the US camp, defending triple world sprint champion Gay cruised through in the second-fastest time of 9.98 seconds along with his trio of teammates — Darvis Patton, Michael Rodgers and Monzavous Edwards.
The visibly limping Gay, however, again complained of his nagging injury.
“My groin is sore but, all in all, it went pretty well,” he said.
In what is building up to be a US v Jamaica sprint-off, Jamaican Michael Frater also qualified for the semi-finals.
Briton Dwain Chambers, the world indoor 60m silver medalist who is competing after having served a two-year doping ban, won his heat in a personal season’s best of 10.05 seconds ahead of Richard Thompson of Trinidad.
In the women’s 10,000m, Masai produced a stunning back-from-the-dead burst to snatch victory from Ethiopia’s Meselech Melkamu, with Wude Ayalew in third and fellow Ethiopian Meseret Defar in fifth.
“I can’t believe it,” beamed Masai, who took advantage of the absence through injury of defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia. “I didn’t give up. The Kenyan team’s plan was to help each other toward the end.”
Melkamu admitted that she had not even seen Masai on her outside at the line.
“I’m very, very disappointed that we lost the gold,” she said.
After the first day of the heptathlon, Britain’s Jessica Ennis remained in pole position on 4,124 points, having recorded field leads of 12.93 seconds in the 100m hurdles, 1.92m in the high jump and 23.25 seconds in the 200m, and a personal best of 14.14m in the shot put.
Bar the lead putt in the shot, Ukraine’s Olympic champion Nataliya Dobrynska suffered a poor day, but still remained in second place on 3,817 points.
Yesterday, Olympic and world champion Olga Kaniskina was in a class of her own when he she raced to the 20km walk gold medal.
The petite 24-year-old Russian surged ahead after only 6km, staging a sparkling one-woman show, with a time of 1 hour, 28 minutes, 10 seconds, that left the competition scrambling for the other medals.
Ireland’s Olive Loughnane bravely held on for silver, just ahead of China’s Liu Hong.
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