NESTA Carter continued his brilliant season, lowering his personal best (PR) for the second time in two days and the third in as many weeks as he equalled the fastest time in 2010, racing to 9.78 seconds to win the men’s 100m at the Rieti IAAF World Challenge Athletics meeting in Italy yesterday.

It was a day of bests as Carter, who clocked a previous best of 9.85 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Bruxelles on Friday, finished ahead of the USA’s Ryan Bailey in a personal best 9.88, another Jamaican Mario Forsythe also in a personal best 9.95, while Carter’s fellow Olympic relay gold medallist Michael Frater was fifth in a season’s best 9.98 seconds.

Carter had earlier posted 10.13 seconds to make the final behind Frater (10.12) in heat one.

Forysthe had earlier joined the sub-10 club when he powered to 9.99 seconds to finish third in heat two, while Lerone Clarke failed to make the final after finishing seventh in heat two in 10.23 seconds.

Carter and Tyson Gay now share the title of fastest man in 2010 as the American also ran 9.78 seconds at the Crystal Palace meeting in London on August 13.

That was two days before Carter lowered his PR for the first time to 9.86 to win at an athletics meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Incidentally, this is the same track on which Asafa Powell broke the 100m world record in 2007 when he posted 9.74 seconds.

Meanwhile, Jamaican Sherone Simpson won the women’s equivalent in 11.11 seconds ahead of the Bahamian old-guard Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie in 11.15, while Aleen Bailey finished down the track in fifth in a time of 11.31.

Lanceford Spence was seventh in the men’s 200m in a time of 21.07 as the USA’s Wallace Spearmon won in 19.85.

Another Jamaican, Dwight Thomas, posted 13.26 for second in the 110m hurdles behind David Oliver of the USA in 13.01.

Diamond League jackpot winner Kaliese Spencer suffered a mishap in the women’s 400m hurdles after falling over the final hurdle while she was leading and finished last in 1:22.45.

Her countrywoman Nickeisha Wilson clocked 55.07 seconds for third behind Sheena Tosta of the USA 54.71 and Zuzana Hejnova of the Czech Republic in 54.99.