Still the one!
World and Olympic sprint champions and joint national record holders Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah continue their impressive forms in the COVID-19 affected season after recoding the top two times in the world in the women’s 100m at the fourth Velocity Fest meet put on by MVP Track Club at the National Stadium on Saturday.
Fraser-Pryce, the World Championships gold medallist from last year, clocked 10.87 seconds (1.4m/s) to win the second section of race two of the women’s 100m to surge to the top of the World Athletics’ performance list ahead of The Bahamas’ Shaunae Miller-Uibo’s 10.98 seconds personal best set on July 24 in Clermont, Florida.
Minutes later Thompson-Herah, the Olympics double sprint champion, stepped up with a season’s best 10.88 seconds (0.3m/s) to move into second place, winning the third section.
Throwing events, the men’s and women’s discus, men’s shot put and javelin throw were added to the series for the first time as the event moved from the Ashenheim stadium where the first three events were stage.
A fifth meet in the series was also set for yesterday.
Fraser-Pryce with 11.28 seconds (-2.7m/s) and Thompson-Herah with 11.41 seconds (-1.0m/s) had run earlier in the meet but stepped up their games later in the afternoon.
Fraser-Pryce, who had run a then world leading 11.00 seconds (-2.2m/s) in the first of the Velocity Fest meets on July 11, got off to her usual bullet-like start and was clearly in the lead from about 10 metres and gradually increased her lead to cross the line ahead of Shashalee Forbes of Sprintec who ran a season’s best 11.20 seconds and Kasheika Cameron in 11.54 seconds.
Thompson-Herah was closer to the pack up to about 40 metres but then streaked away to beat the fast-finishing Natasha Morrison, who ran her season’s best 11.25 seconds, and Anthonique Strachan of The Bahamas, who looked good for the first 50 metres before fading to third in 11.46 seconds, also her best for the season.
Strachan had earlier won the women’s 200m in 23.58 seconds (-1.0m/s) beating Samantha Curtis of Pelicans TC with 24.78 seconds.
World Championships bronze medallist Nesta Carter and Tyquendo Tracey both ran 10.20 seconds in their respective sections in race two of the men’s 100m race.
Tracey just edged the improving Romario Williams who ran a life-time best 10.21 seconds (1.4m/s) in section four with Nigel Ellis third in his season’s best 10.31 seconds.
Williams, of G C Foster and who represented Muschett High as a junior, has lowered his time in all four of the meets run so far.
Carter, who had run 10.18 seconds earlier in the season, won his section ahead of Oshane Bailey in 10.24 seconds (1.5m/s) and Emre Barnes in 10.51 seconds.
Sprintec’s Rasheed Dwyer won the men’s 200m with 20.94 seconds (-1.6m/s), beating Andel Miller of MVP with 21.50 seconds and Emmanuel Callendar’s 21.66 seconds.
Janieve Russell ran 51.74 seconds to hold off Shericka Jackson with 51.76 seconds in the women’s 400m in the second section after Stephenie-Ann McPherson won the first section with 52.20 seconds.
Rusheen McDonald won his third-straight men’s 400m after he clocked 46.49 seconds, beating the G C Foster pair of Akani Slater (46.60 seconds) and Demar Murray (46.93 seconds).
Commonwealth Games champion Fedrick Dacres won the men’s discus throw with a best mark of 64.45m, beating Chad Wright’s 63.24m and Kai Chang’s 57.37m.
Chang also won the shot put with 15.01m while Samantha Hall won the women’s discus throw with 49.52m.
World Championships silver medallist Shanieka Ricketts jumped 14.21m (-0.6m/s) to win the women’s triple jump, beating St Lucia’s Sandisha Antoine with 13.50m (0.8m/s); Tissanna Hickling won the women’s long jump with 6.30m (-0.7m/s), while Guyana’s Domon Williams won the men’s long jump with a wind-aided 7.48m (3.0m/s) and the triple jump with 15.40m (-1.0m/s).
Rasheed Broadbell was the only competitor in the 110m hurdles and ran 13.92 seconds into a strong headwind of 4.9m/s while Megan Tapper won her 100m hurdles race with 13.24 seconds (-2.4m/s), ahead of Yanique Thompson (13.37 seconds) and Shanette Allison with 14.68 seconds.