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| August 11, 2005 | Thursday | Rajab 5, 1426 |
World Athletics Championship: Williams-Darling lands 400m title
HELSINKI, Aug 10: Olympic champion Tonique Williams-Darling of Bahamas battled through torrential rain to win the world 400 metres title on Wednesday. Williams-Darling fought off a determined challenge from American Sanya Richards to take the gold medal in 49.55 seconds.
Richards was second in 49.74 and 2003 world champion Ana Guevara of Mexico third in 49.81.
Richards was level with Guevara at the first bend and had a slight lead coming off the final turn but Williams-Darling maintained her form and powered through to the finish.
The 29-year-old, who won a share of the Golden League jackpot in 2004, knelt down on the track and mouthed the words “thank you” before wrapping a Bahamian flag around herself.
Richards’s silver was her first individual medal at a major championships. She won gold in the 4x400 relay at the 2003 world championships and last year’s Olympics. #
Later, Tianna Madison of the United States won the women’s long jump title. The 19-year-old made a best jump of 6.89 metres with Olympic bronze medallist Tatyana Kotova of Russia taking silver (6.79m) and reigning champion Eunice Barber, of France, the bronze (6.76m).
Earlier, American Tyson Gay threw down the gauntlet to world 100 metres champion Justin Gatlin as U.S. sprinters dominated the men’s 200 metres semifinals.
Gay flashed home in 20.27 ahead of Gatlin who did not try to reel in his team mate. The pair were joined in Thursday’s final by two compatriots, defending champion John Capel and Wallace Spearmon.
Gatlin, who won the world 100 title by the biggest margin in the championships’ history on Sunday, is striving to emulate compatriot Maurice Greene by achieving the sprint double.
The former Olympic champion is the only man to have won the 100-200 double at a world championships, in Seville in 1999.
“The Helsinki gods are on my side right now,” Gatlin told reporters. “The rain just started after we finished.”
Gatlin said his exertions in the Finnish capital had left his team mates with a clear advantage.
“They have (run) three races and I have seven under my belt so the advantage is on their side,” he said.
“But if I go out there, be competitive and with a full heart and run a great race then I think I can do it.”
Capel kept his concentration after a dispute with the race starter to win the first semi in 20.45 ahead of Spearmon.
“They were telling me at the start that my feet were not connected to the pad, and I just told them that ‘I know, and they will connect when I come up’, but that was not good enough.”
Spearmon was also unhappy, criticising the sound of the starting gun.
“It is not loud enough,” he said. “It is like an echo.”
Meanwhile, no doping positives had been reported at the 10th world championships before the start of competition on Wednesday, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said.
The IAAF said in a statement that 529 in and out-of-competition tests had been carried out before and during the championships which opened on Aug 6.
Earlier on Tuesday, Saif Saeed Shaheen retained the world 3,000 metres steeplechase title for his adopted nation Qatar during an evening of thunder, lightning and torrential Rain.
The three track finals were staged at 15-minute intervals, starting with the steeplechase where Shaheen was again too good for his former Kenyan team mates.
Cuban Zulia Calatayud scored an unexpected victory in the women’s 800 metres and Bershawn Jackson won the 400 metres hurdles for the United States after defending champion Felix Sanchez pulled up injured.
Shaheen, who used to compete for Kenya under his original name of Stephen Cherono, won the world title two years ago in Paris but was banned from competing in last year’s Athens Olympics.
He responded by breaking the world record in Brussels at the same meeting where Sanchez incurred the injury that has dogged him for the past year.
On Tuesday Shaheen dominated the Kenyan trio who swept the medals in Athens, holding off Olympic champion Ezekiel Kemboi in a replay of the Paris final to win in eight minutes 13.31 seconds.
“This is a consolation for missing the Olympics,” he said.”I want to win more in my career and prepare for the Olympics in China in 2008.”
In the women’s 800 Calatayud emerged in the final stretch to win in 1:58.82 ahead of Moroccan Hasna Benhassi, with pre-race favourite Tatyana Andrianova of Russia in third place.
Defending champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique, the greatest women’s 800 metres runner of them all who was attempting a fourth world title, finished fourth after leading for the first lap.
The intensive track programme concluded with Jackson winning his first major title in 47.30 seconds ahead of team mate James Carter. Japanese Dai Tamesue prevented an American sweep by finishing third ahead of U.S. champion Kerron Clement.
Jackson, nicknamed Batman at high school, missed the Olympics after finishing fourth in the U.S. trials.
After the first day of the decathlon, Olympic silver medallist Bryan Clay of the United States led with 4,527 points ahead of Olympic champion Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic on 4,513.—AFP
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