Blake, Anderson on top at FBK Games
Jamaicans Yohan Blake and Britany Anderson were winners at Monday’s 41st FBK Games at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadion in Hengelo, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold event where conditions were described as including “driving rain, sweeping wind and bitter cold”.
Blake won the men’s 100m, which was his first race on foreign soil this year, while Anderson ran a season’s best to win the 100m hurdles in a slight upset as Christopher Taylor opened his outdoors 400m season with a second-place finish.
After finishing second in his previous two races, in Birmingham and Ostrava, Czech Republic, Blake got off to a fast start and won the race by a comfortable margin over American Kyree King-10.23 seconds. South African Emile Erasmus was third in 10.25 seconds.
Anderson, who was ran out of lane eight, surprised the field with a season’s best 12.51 seconds (0.4m/s), beating World Champion Nia Ali of the USA who ran 12.69 seconds and her compatriot Tonee Marshall was third in 12.70 seconds.
Anderson’s time beat her previous best of 12.59 seconds set at a meet in Jacksonville, Florida, in May and is the sixth-best in the world so far.
Taylor had a good start and looked set to win before he was passed by the American veteran Vernon Norwood who won with 45.28 seconds, to the Jamaican’s 45.45 seconds with Trevor Stewart of the USA third in 45.93 seconds.
Former World Under-20 champion Damion Thomas was well set in the 110m hurdles before he clipped the seventh barrier then hit the eighth hard and failed to complete the race.
He, however, walked off the track on his own.
At the Josef Odložila Memorial at Juliska Stadion, Praha, Czech Republic, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze event, Shawn Rowe was third in the men’s 400m hurdles in 50.11 seconds.
Great Britain’s Seamus Derbyshire won with 49.53 seconds and Vit Muller of the Czech Republic was second in 49.63 seconds.
— Paul Reid