ZURICH: Jamaican sprint queen Elaine Thompson-Herah led a host of Olympic champions to glory in an action-packed Diamond League final in Zurich on Thursday, just a month after the end of the Tokyo Games.
Thompson-Herah crowned what she called an ‘amazing’ season by scorching to victory in the 100 metres in a meet record of 10.65 seconds, finishing ahead of Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith (10.87) at the iconic Letzigrund Stadium.
“It has been a crazy season, a long one and a tiring one. I was so consistent because I was just keeping the faith in me and did not allow any negativity,” said the second fastest female sprinter ever.
Asher-Smith had a quick turnaround as she doubled up in the 200 metres, but the winner of that race in a rapid, world under-20 record of 21.78 seconds was the ever-improving Namibian teenager Christine Mboma, barred from competing in events between 400 metres and the mile because of unusually high testosterone levels.
Another star from Tokyo, Norway’s Karsten Warholm, made his first outing in the 400-metre hurdles since setting a sensational world record of 45.94 seconds when winning gold.
The Norwegian, a two-time world champion, went out hard over the first eight hurdles and eventually held on for victory in 47.35 seconds from Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos.
Also a world record setter in Tokyo, Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas wrapped up the women’s triple jump with a best of 15.48 metres, and fellow Olympic gold medallist Pedro Pichardo of Portugal claimed the men’s trophy at 17.70 metres.
Rojas ended her season with the most 15-metre jumps in one season (16) and now owns six of the top seven jumps in history.
In the field, Russian Anzhelika Sidorova became only the third woman in pole vault history to clear five metres, with her height of 5.01 metres just short of the world record of 5.06 set in the same stadium by Yelena Isinbayeva in 2009.
Sidorova’s effort was a Diamond League record, second on the world outdoor all-time list and the best clearance outdoors since Isinbayeva’s record was set 12 years ago.
Sweden’s Armand Duplantis also set a meet record of 6.06 metres for victory in the men’s pole vault, sending the 20,000-strong crowd wild as he had three attempts at bettering his own world record of 6.18 metres.
One of the most highly-anticipated races was the women’s 1,500 metres, and it did not disappoint.
Kenya’s Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon held on in a brutal final straight sprint to beat Ethiopian-born Dutch runner Sifan Hassan, who had taken bronze in the event in Tokyo along with two golds in an unprecedented treble.
Timothy Cheruiyot made sure of a Kenyan double after holding on to pip Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway in a winning time of 3:31.37 to reverse their 1-2 positions in Tokyo.
In the absence of Italy’s Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs, Fred Kerley stormed to 100-metre victory in 9.87 seconds over Canada’s Andre de Grasse in a repeat of the fight for second and third places in Tokyo.
De Grasse, the Olympic 200-metre champion, was then edged by Kenny Bednarek, who won in 19.70 seconds of that event as US athletes bagged eight of the 32 trophies on offer.
British teenager Keely Hodgkinson won the womens 800 metres title ahead of Kate Grace of the United States.
Tokyo champion Valarie Allman won the discus, while Michael Cherry and Quanera Hayes took the 400-metre trophies, and Devon Allen trumped Olympic gold medallist Hansle Parchment of Jamaica in the men’s 110-metre hurdles.
Other Olympic champions with no hangover were Sweden’s Daniel Stahl in the men’s discus, Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi in the high jump and Kenya’s Emmanuel Korir in the 800 metres.
But neither Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali nor Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai could double up in the 3,000-metre steeplechases, Kenya pulling off an impressive double through Benjamin Kigen and Norah Jeruto respectively.
Christin Hussong and Johannes Vetter also doubled up for Germany in the javelin.
There were 25 final winners, with each champion collecting $30,000 — half the prize in 2019 — and automatic entry into next year’s world championships in Eugene in the United States.
Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2021