KEQIAO, China (AFP)— Akani Simbine won a thrilling 100m in a photo finish on Saturday at the second Diamond League meeting of the season while Armand “Mondo” Duplantis dominated the pole vault but failed to break his own world record.

South Africa’s Simbine claimed victory in Keqiao, near Shanghai in China, by dipping under the line in 9.98 seconds, beating Jamaican Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson by a whisker (9.99).

Simbine, who ran 9.90sec in Gaborone last month and won last week in the Diamond League opener in China’s Xiamen (9.99), said he was “not happy with the start”.

“It is just frustrating that I did not get it right today but I was at least able to make up for that mistake and get the win,” the 31-year-old said.

Duplantis triumphed once more with minimum fuss.

He failed in his three attempts to clear 6.28m, instead comfortably winning with a meeting-record 6.11m.

The US-born Swede, who holds the world record of 6.27m, sat out three of the lower heights before taking a clear lead from Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis.

Duplantis struggled a week ago in Xiamen because of the wind — though he still won.

“The jump did not feel that great and the run did not feel that great either,” he said in a warm and breezy Keqiao.

“So to have a good attempt while not feeling my best is actually a really good thing. I will keep working on my speed.”

The 25-year-old double Olympic champion is building towards the world championships in Tokyo, where he is aiming for the hat-trick.

He said: “I am going to take another month with no competitions, just train hard and make sure I can build up to a really good, healthy and strong season leading into Tokyo in September.”

Olympic and world champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine won the high jump as the only woman to clear 2.00m. She also triumphed in Xiamen.

“I like my performance tonight,” she said.

“I improve it step by step on my competition from last week because now I jumped two metres at the first attempt.”

– Warholm in ‘messy’ race –
Karsten Warholm underlined his superiority in the men’s 400m hurdles but did not trouble his world record of 45.94 seconds, set at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The 29-year-old Norwegian clocked 47.28sec, the world’s fastest time so far this year.

He felt Saturday’s display was “a bit messy, I didn’t hit all the hurdles very good”.

“Still, I managed to get a very decent time so that was nice — but it also shows that there’s more to do,” said Warholm, who won silver at Paris last year.

In the men’s 400m, Paris gold medallist Quincy Hall was well off the pace, finishing in eighth place in 45.99sec after coming back from injury.

Fellow American Christopher Bailey won in 44.17sec.

Another from the United States, Cordell Tinch, ran the fourth-fastest time ever in the men’s 110m hurdles as he romped home in 12.87sec.