VCB opens 200m campaign on winning note
Jamaica’s multiple Olympic and World Championships medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown made a winning start to her 200m programme this season after taking the event at yesterday’s IAAF World Challenge meeting at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, China, winning in 22.68 seconds (0.2m/s).
The 33-year-old Campbell-Brown left the quick-starting American World Junior Championships bronze medallist Kaylin Whitney coming off the curve and powered away to win by a comfortable margin.
After running the 100m in Brazil and Shanghai, Campbell-Brown will be expecting to compete later again this season at the Bird’s Nest at the IAAF World Championships.
Whitney was second in a season’s best 23.06 seconds with Jamaica’s Schillonie Calvert third in 23.12 seconds, also a season’s best for the half-lap event.
The veteran Aleen Bailey was eighth in 23.98 seconds.
Calvert got another third place in the 100m where she clocked 11.42 seconds (0.2m/s) behind Trinidad’s Michelle-Lee Ahye, who clocked 11.05 seconds, and the USA’s Charonda Williams with 11.28 seconds.
Bailey was ninth in 11.67 seconds.
Andrea Bliss was eighth in the 100m hurdles in 14.41 seconds.
Commonwealth Games champion Andrew Riley was sixth in the men’s 110m hurdles, running 13.68 seconds (0.8m/s) and was seventh in the 100m in 10.42 seconds.
Meanwhile, America’s David Oliver ran the season’s quickest 110m hurdles of 13.15 seconds yesterday.
Oliver, three months before he intends to return to the Bird’s Nest Stadium to defend his world title, lowered his 13.17 set at the Shanghai Diamond League on Sunday as he again beat Cuba’s Orlando Ortega into second.
Elsewhere in Beijing, Kenya’s Alfred Kipketer won the men’s 800m in 1:45.45, and his fellow countryman Jonathan Muia Ndiku took out the steeplechase.
America’s Mike Hartfield leapt 8.27m to win long jump gold, ahead of compatriot Jeff Henderson and Russian world champion Aleksandr Menkov.
And there was success for hosts China when Wu Shujiao won the women’s 100m hurdles, Xue Changrui claimed the men’s pole vault and Zhang Guowei was the men’s high jump winner.
— Paul Reid/AFP
