Bolt sprints back to gold

Dinesh WEERAWANSA reporting from South Korea

DAEGU, Sep. 3 – Jamaican Usain Bolt showed that the world champion would hardly repeat mistakes when he bagged men’s 200m gold medal with this year’s world’s leading timing of 19.40 seconds on the penultimate day of the 13th IAAF World Championships continued at the Daegu Stadium under lights today.

The was a pin drop silence as the eight men’s 200m runners came under the starter’s orders. Many at the packed Daegu Stadium had their hearts beating faster, anxiously awaiting to see whether under pressure Bolt would make a false start once more, as he did in the men’s 100m and got his medal hopes shattered. But Bolt made sure that the gold in the double sprint won’t go out of his hands this time around.

Bolt had the slowest reaction time out of all eight finalists, perhaps still recovering from Monday’s nightmare. But he recovered quickly and reached the top gear as he reached the curve in terrific speed.

The Jamaican speed merchant knew exactly what the demand was and rose to the occasion with greater courage and speed.

He was never troubled by American Walter Dix who was clearly behind Bolt in clocking a season’s best 19.70 to take the silver. European champion Christophe Lemaitre of France took the bronze in 19.80, a new French national record.

“It was great to win once again after that unfortunate start in the 100m. I knew the medal was well within my reach, unless I throw it away as it happened before. Winning the gold medal with the leading timing makes it even more important,” a delighted Bolt said with his customary action of celebrating victory.

Minutes before the 200m final, Australian Sally Pearson shattered Oceania Area record twice within two hours to bag women’s 100m hurdles gold medal in style. She clocked a record 12.28 seconds to give Australia its first gold medal at the Daegu 2011 World Championship.

The Aussie lass did well to handle the strong challenge thrown by Americans Danielle Carruthers and Dawn Harper who won the silver and bronze respectively. Both had the identical timing of 12.47 – their personal bests, and only the photo finish could separate them.

The 2008 Olympic silver medallist who set her previous lifetime best of 12.48 in the much harsher weather of Birmingham, England seven weeks ago, moved to joint fifth all-time alongside Grazyna Rabsztyn of Poland who set her mark 31 years earlier.

The US women’s 4 x 400m relay team followed the footsteps of their men’s team to secure the gold medal with this year’s leading timing of three minutes and 18.09 seconds. Sanya Richards-Ross, Allyson Felix, Jessica Beard and Francena McCorory ran a magnificent race to push their arch rivals in sprints Jamaica to the second place.

Nevertheless, the Jamaican women did well to set a new national record of 3:18.71 to secure the silver. Russian took the bronze with a season’s best 3:19.36.

In contrast, the US men’s 4 x 400m relay team won the gold last night with minimum effort. Though it was their fourth successive gold medal in the World Championship history since Helsinki 2005, it was that dashing final lap by the world individual 400m silver medallist LaShawn Merritt that made the US dream possible. Merritt got the Americans out of hole after he was handed the baton down in third place going into anchor leg to clock 2:59.31 – the slowest winning time since the USSR won the inaugural title in 1983.

African champion Asbel Kiprop, who only secured fourth place at the Berlin 2009 World Championships, came back strongly to secure the gold medal in men’s 1,500m final. Returning a timing of three minutes and 35.69 seconds, Kiprop did well to push compatriot Silas Kiplagat to the second place – 3:35.92. The bronze medal was won by American Mathew Centrowitz (3:36.08).

Rissian Anna Chicherova kept the pressure on Blanka Vlasic all the way through the women’s high jump final until the final height attempted at 2.05m to fulfill her long dream. A perfect record for the World leader, Chicherova, meant that from the time the bar went to two metres, Vlasic was always behind. At 2.00 and 2.03, Chicherova cleared first time. Vlasic got each on the second attempt. But she was always trailing, without a chance to take the lead.

Antonietta Di Martino, the only other remaining competitor, cleared 2.00 after a long wait for a medal presentation to end. Hampered by the unhappy coincidence, she faced the same situation with her third attempt at 2.03, but this time the Italian could not pull off a clearance to remain in the competition. Di Martino thus took the bronze at 2.00m.

Finally, at 2.05, Chicherova missed. Vlasic had cleared that height or better in each of the past four years. She had come to Daegu under an injury cloud and already upped her season’s best from 2.00 to 2.03 in the final.