media_artricles :: 2014

Walcott breaks national record

Olympic champ second at Zurich Diamond League meeting

Keshorn Walcott improved on his own national record at the Weltklasse IAAF Diamond League finals, in Zurich, Switzerland, yesterday.

The reigning Olympic men’s javelin champion produced the big 85.77 metres throw in the very first round of the competition, bettering the 85.28m standard he had established in the Commonwealth Games qualifying competition in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month.

Yesterday’s 85.77m throw earned Walcott second spot, behind Germany’s Thomas Rohler, who won with a personal best 87.63m effort. The 21-year-old Trinidad and Tobago athlete beat a number of quality throwers, including 2007 world champion Tero Pitkamaki, the Finn finishing third with an 85.12m throw.

Julius Yego, who beat Walcott into second spot at the Commonwealth Games, had to settle for fourth spot yesterday, the Kenyan producing an 84.71m effort. Czech Republic’s reigning world champion Vitezslav Vesely (84.04m) was fifth.

Meanwhile, T&T’s Jehue Gordon finished fifth in the Weltklasse men’s 400m hurdles, the 2013 world champion getting home in 48.91 seconds—his second fastest clocking this season. Gordon’s best run in 2014, 48.75, was produced in finishing second in the Commonwealth Games final.

The Commonwealth champion, Cornel Fredericks was again in winners’ row yesterday, the South African clocking 48.25 seconds to force American Michael Tinsley (48.31) into second spot. Puerto Rico’s Javier Culson (48.53) was third, while Dominican Republic’s two-time Olympic champion Felix Sanchez (49.31) finished seventh.

Richard “Torpedo” Thompson finished seventh in the men’s 100m “A” race, the T&T sprinter getting to the line in 10.26 seconds. Commonwealth Games champion Kemar Bailey-Cole topped the field in 9.96, the Jamaican finishing well ahead of American Mike Rodgers, the runner-up in 10.05. Briton James Dasaolu (10.06) and Jamaica’s former world record holder Asafa Powell (10.07) were third and fourth, respectively.

On Sunday, at the Tampere Games, in Finland, Josanne Lucas finished fourth in the women’s 100m hurdles. The T&T athlete clocked a season’s best 13.21 seconds.

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