Gatlin labours to win 100 metres

Justin Gatlin brought his season to a close with a 100m victory at Friday's season-ending Diamond League meet, but the American passed on a shot at a rare double after straining his thigh.

While the twice-banned Gatlin headlined the men's line-up in the absence of Jamaican superstar Usain Bolt, the women's competition saw newly-crowned world champion Dafne Schippers see off the challenge of the 'grande dame' of the 200m, American Allyson Felix.

Schippers, who has the late Florence Griffith-Joyner's longstanding world record on her radar, clocked 22.12 seconds to beat Felix into second by a tenth of a second.

Felix, the most decorated female athlete in IAAF history who won world 400m gold in Beijing, led coming off the bend, but the 23-year-old Dutch sprinter produced her trademark powerful final 50 metres to outstrip the American.

"Beating the Olympic champion -- I didn't know that it feels so good," Schippers said of Felix, who has won three world 200m titles and is the reigning Olympic champion, having previously bagged silver at the 2004 and 2008 Games in a sparkling career.

Felix described her second place as "quite logical...because I'm not the sharpest 200m runner at this moment. My switch to the 400m definitely took away some of my speed".

'I just wasn't that sharp today, it wasn't there," the 29-year-old lamented. "I have been running the 200m this year but it's been quite some time since my last one, so I guess I haven't had that ballistic work."

Gatlin, usually one of the most pleasing sprinters to the eye, laboured to victory in the 100m with a vicious dip on the line to edge out Nigerian-born Qatari Femi Ogunode, who went on to win the 200m in an Asian record of 19.97sec.

- (AFP)