Asafa runs another sub-10
WORLD Championships relay gold medal winner Asafa Powell bounced back from his individual letdown by winning the men’s 100m in a good-looking 9.96 seconds (0.3m/s) at the 65th Borisa Hanzekovica Memorial meeting, an IAAF World Challenge at the Mladost Stadium yesterday.
After placing seventh in the 100m final at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China, Powell rallied to deliver big in helping his fellow Jamaicans to gold in the men’s 4x100m team.
But yesterday, Powell was back at his individual best, blowing away a string field to register his 101st sub-10.00 seconds 100m race, but his 97th wind legal effort.
It was his 10th race under 10.00 seconds this season, but first ever in Zagreb.
American Mike Rodgers was second in 10.10 seconds, while Turkey’s Ramil Guliyev was third in 10.18 seconds.
Guliyev, who was sixth in the World Championships 200m final, returned later with a stunning 19.88 seconds (-0.4m/s), sixth fastest this year, to win the 200m, a new Turkish national record, his first time under 20.00 seconds, beating his previous time of 20.04 seconds set in 2009.
Meanwhile, three other Jamaicans finished on the podium: in third place on the night was Novlene Williams-Mills in the women’s 400m, Simone Facey in the women’s 100m and Andrew Riley in the men’s 110m hurdles.
Williams-Mills, who has made the final of the last three major global championships, battled American winner Natasha Hastings midway the race, but finished third in 51.81 seconds, edged on the line by France’s Floria Guie (51.63). The American won in 51.20 seconds.
Facey, who missed the World Championships, clocked 11.25 seconds (-0.1m/s) for third in the women’s 100m, while Pan-American Games 100m champion Sherone Simpson was fifth in 11.37 seconds.
American Candyce McGrone won in 11.10 seconds coming from behind in the last 20 metres, while Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou was second in 11.17 seconds.
Riley, coming off a win in Berlin on Sunday, ran 13.52 seconds (0.5m/s) as World champion Sergey Shubenkov ran away from the field to win in 13.11 seconds with Frenchman Pascal Martinot-Lagarde second in 13.50 seconds.
