SHANGHAI, Sept 28: Wallace Spearmon upset rusty speed king Tyson Gay in the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix on Friday while superstar hurdler Liu Xiang also crashed to defeat, fading to third behind Cuba's Dayron Robles.
World 100m and 200m champion Gay blasted out of the blocks and was leading at 80m before US team-mate Spearmon found another gear to edge him on the line in 9.96 seconds.
Gay, a training partner and close friend of Spearmon’s, clocked 10.02 with Jamaica’s Michael Frater third.
Asafa Powell, who set a new 100m world record of 9.74sec in Italy earlier this month, said ahead of the race that he was ‘not allowed’ to face arch-rival Gay here in a rematch of their world championship final.
Instead, the Jamaican ran the 200m and blitzed the field in 20 seconds flat, just shy of his personal best. America’s Rodney Martin was second and Jamaica’s Christopher Williams third.
Shanghai-native Liu was appearing before his home crowd for the first time since winning world championship gold and was greeted by rapturous applause. Liu was desperate to win but nerves got the better of him and he had a terrible start.
He was unable to make up ground on Robles who won in 13.01 with American Anwar Moore second and Liu struggling to third in 13.21, well outside his world record of 12.88.
The untouchable Jeremy Wariner cruised through his 400m race in 44.02, crossing the line more than one second ahead of second-placed US teammate Angelo Taylor with Canada’s Tyler Christopher a distant third.
Ethiopian distance legend Kenenisa Bekele, more often seen running the 10,000m or 5,000m, tried his hand at the 1,500m and came second in a personal best time of 3:32.35 behind Kenyan Daniel Kirchirchitr in 3:31.75.
Results:
Men:
100m: 1 Wallace Spearmon (US) 9.96, 2 Tyson Gay (US) 10.02; 3 Michael Frater (JAM) 10.07; 4 Rikki Fifton (GBR) 10.16; 5 Churandy Martina (AHO) 10.22; 6 Jj Johnson (US) 10.24; 7 Zhang Peimeng (CHN) 10.27; 8 Wen Yongyi (CHN) 10.31; 9 Marcus Brunson (US) 10.40.200m: 1 Asafa Powell (JAM) 20.00; 2 Rodney Martin (US) 20.29; 3 Christopher Williams (JAM) 20.39; 4 Jj Johnson (US) 20.42; 5 Churandy Martina (AHO) 20.60; 6 Brendan Christian (ANT) 20.62; 7 Brian Dzingai (ZIM) 20.71; 8 Liu Haitao (CHN) 21.22; 9 Chen Yingqiu (CHN) 21.53
400m: 1 Jeremy Wariner (US) 44.02; 2 Angelo Taylor (US) 45.03; 3 Tyler Christopher (CAN) 45.20; 4 Darold Williamson (US) 45.38; 5 Gary Kikaya (COD) 45.42; 6 Kerron Clement (US) 46.59; 7 Sanjay Ayre (JAM) 47.02; 8 Wang Xiaoxu (CHN) 47.25.