Best ever season opener
The crowd at the Colorful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting held in Korea on Wednesday, was not disappointed as Usain Bolt started his 100m season with a World leading 9.86 seconds performance. Overall the half-full Daegu stadium seemed quite excited with the evening’s action with promising noise rising from the stands quite often. The world leading time prior to this meet was Tyson Gay’s 9.89 intermediate time from Manchester straight 200m race last Sunday. Given that result and also Asafa Powell’s super fast 9.75s windy result in Doha Diamond League meet, it’s clear that others will be lowering their results in the 100m and Bolt has to be alert. Before the race he seemed to be exactly that looking extremely concentrated and quiet minutes from the start. American Travis Padgett and Jamaican Michael Frater had run 9.92 and 9.94 windy results behind Powell in Doha and therefore Bolt’s race against them tells something about his present condition against the former World record holder Powell.
In the race itself something just didn’t click in the first few strides of the race as Bolt seemed to get out of the blocks quite slowly and only reaching others after some 20 metres into the race. But then the 23-year-old Jamaican did what he usually does, run away from the others to win in a world leading 9.86 result, 0.29 seconds faster than Michael Frater in second place clocking 10.15.
9.86 is easily Bolt’s fastest time in the opening race of the season and the huge gap to others tells a clear story about how good he actually is, even after a bad start. Wind during the race was almost nonexistent, +0.1 m/s.
Frater was second followed by Mike Rodgers of USA in 10.18 with Trell Kimmons (10.25) and Travis Padgett (10.30) in fifth and sixth respectively, both from the United States.
Oliver takes clear win over Robles
Another highlight was naturally the men’s 110m Hurdles where World record holder and reigning Olympic champion from Cuba, Dayron Robles was racing for the first time outdoors this season. Before the competition world leading athlete with 13.12, American David Oliver was confident about this season when asked about how fast he can go in 2010: “I’m going to win some races this season, I’m not looking for fast times, they will come in good races.”
But many didn’t expect him to be this much better than the other top hurdlers. Midway to the race Robles, who seemed to have a decent start looked to be pulling away, but then Oliver hit hard.
The 28-year-old, who won the bronze medal in Beijing 2008 behind Robles, took the fourth straight win in as many races this season clocking another World leader 13.11 in the process.
Robles was way behind in second place with a 13.26 result and Jamaican Dwight Thomas took third place in 13.40. Berlin World champion Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados is clearly not yet in his best form, he was in fifth place with 13.67.
Crawford over Jones in women's sprint hurdles
The women’s 100m Hurdles was another good event. Again Lolo Jones, the American double 60m Hurdles World indoor champion from 2008 and 2010, had a dreadful start and didn’t seem to find her rhythm at all in this competition. Jones was a metre off leading countrywoman Ginnie Crawford already at the first hurdle and lost more ground in the next couple of hurdles before forcing herself to challenge for the win in the last part of the race.
Crawford had a very even race although she too seemed to be missing something in the last 20 metres with Jones able to almost pass her despite of all the early problems. Crawford held on to win in 12.77 just holding off Jones, who was timed 12.78. It’s quite clear that Jones should be able to run much faster when she gets the first part of her race to order.
In a close fight for the top three places Perdita Felicien of Canada clocked 12.80. Back in fifth place Lee Yeon-Kyoung set a Korean national record in 13.12 lowering her own 13.23 mark she had set at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. Another Korean Chung Hye-Rim also went under the old record with 13.14 for sixth place.
Second consecutive win for Jeter
In the women’s 100m the fastest woman in 2009 with a blazing 10.64 result in September, American Carmelita Jeter grabbed her second win of the season in as many races. She clocked 11.00 to win reasonably easily before Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown, who was second in 11.05.
In the hammer German Betty Heidler continued a good start to her season winning another competition with a 75.28m toss, almost three metres more than Russian Tatyana Lysenko, who was second with a 72.36m throw.
And more importantly this was Heidler’s second straight win from the 2009 Berlin World champion and World record holder Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland, who was fourth with 71.86m. Another German Kathrin Klaas grabbed her first win from Wlodarczyk since July 2007, after that the Pole had won 14 consecutive competitions against Klaas.
Koreans highlights
The evening didn’t offer any Korean winners, but a couple of jumpers got close. Jung Soon-Ok placed second in the women’s Long Jump with a 6.47m jump behind American Funmi Jimoh’s 6.68m winning result. In the men’s Triple Jump Randy Lewis of Grenada won with a 17.01m jump with Kim Deok-Hyeon in second place 14 centimetres back with a 16.87m mark. Russian Yuliya Golubchikova won the Pole Vault clearing 4.65m today.
In the rest of the women’s running events there were no big surprises. As expected Jamaican world leader Kenia Sinclair was fastest in the 800m in 2:00.51, but with Sinclair fading a bit in the final straight Kenyan Olympic winner Pamela Jelimo showed some promising running to finish in second place with a 2:01.52 season’s best. Former Briton, now representing New Zealand, Nikki Hamblin won the 1500m in 4:15.21 and American Bianca Knight was the sole 200m runner under 23 seconds winning in 22.92 in windless conditions.
In the men’s javelin throw Korean Park Jae-Myong also came close to winning starting his season with a 80.11m result, just behind Polish Igor Janik, who won the competition with a 80.46m throw. Favourites were not surprised in the rest of the men’s running events either.
The last event of the day offered a sprint finish, but in the end Elijah Chelimo of Kenya, in a clear lead before the last lap, won the race in 8:14.59, just 0.3 seconds off his season’s best in Doha. South African World champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi won the 800m in 1:45.60 and American 400m Hurdles reigning Olympic champion Angelo Taylor took the flat 400m in 45.21.
Ryan Bailey of USA was sharpest in a close finish in the men’s 200m winning in 20.58 before Jamaican Marvin Anderson, who clocked 20.59 for the second place.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
