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| Sunday, 24 August 2003 |
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Susanthika qualifies for 2nd round of 100 metres with personal best of 11.20 secs Dinesh Weerawansa reporting from France PARIS, Aug. 23 - Sri Lanka's wonder girl Susanthika Jayasinghe came second to defending champion Pintusevich Block of Ukraine in women's 100 first round as the 9th edition of the IAAF World Championship got off to a spectacular start at Stade de France, Saint Dennis here today. The events proper got under way this morning though the 90-minute colourful opening ceremony took place only in the afternoon session before a packed stadium. The day one schedule began with the men's 20km walk, in which Ecuador's Jefferson Perez established a new World record. Olympic medallist Jayasinghe ran a personal best timings of 11.20 seconds in women's 100m first round heat 4, in which she finished second. Running in lane six, the 27-year-old Lankan lass did not have the best of starts but she recovered quickly to give a good fight to the last World Championship gold medallist Block at the end. Jayasinghe injected more power to her run in the last 50m dash to qualify for the quarter finals in convincing fashion. Winning the women's 100m heat four was Block, who incidentally won the gold medal when Jayasinghe bagged the silver at the 1997 IAAF World Championship in Athens, Greece, Block (11.13 seconds) ran in lane seven, the outer lane of Jayasinghe which gave the Lankan an inspiration to go for her season's best performance, Nigerian Onyali-Omanghemi Mary (11.50) finished third way behind Jayasinghe. Speaking to 'Sunday Observer' after her run on the Saint Dennis track, Jayasinghe said her main concentration would be on women's 200m, her pet event which brought fame to her and Sri Lanka at World Championship and Olympic level. "My target is the 200m but would make every effort to do my best in the 100m as well. The weather here is fine but the facilities here are pathetic,"The first gold medal of the 203-nation event went to Ecuador's Perez who returned a timing of one hour, 17 minutes and 21 seconds. |
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