media_artricles :: 2012

Baptiste makes bronze run at Lausanne

Jeter maintains Olympic form

National sprint queen Kelly-Ann Baptiste shrugged off her Olympic disappointment with a 10.93 bronze medal run in the women’s 100m event at the Athletissima Samsung Diamond League meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland yesterday. The six-time national title holder, who placed sixth in a time of 10.94 in the women’s 100m Olympic final, exacted revenge on the London Games bronze medallist, Veronica Campbell-Brown, who trailed in fourth in 10.99. Baptiste also crossed the line ahead of Jamaican Kerron Stewart who clocked a slow time of 11.10. A photo review was needed to determine the winner of this event after Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica) and Carmelita Jeter (USA) both crossed the line in 10.86s. After some nerve-wracking minutes, it was the American Olympic runner-up who was declared the winner after she managed to out-dip her Jamaican foe. Speaking after the win Jeter expressed her joy in clinching the victory: “I always want to win and when you do it feels pretty good. It was just like the Olympic final, I had to fight to the finish because Shelly-Ann has had such a great season. She's a great starter and fantastic competitor. She always brings her A-game so you have to bring yours.”

Sprinters Keston Bledman and Richard Thompson were the last two athletes to cross the line in the men’s 100m. Bledman, the reigning national men’s 100m champion, placed seventh in 10.14 while Thompson finished in 10.32. After Usain Bolt opted not to run in the 100m, Yohan Blake became the undisputed favourite to win event and that he did. The Olympic silver medallist left his competitors in the dust with a blazing time of 9.69 seconds to set a personal best and erase the meet record of 9.82 set in 2010 by compatriot and training partner Bolt. Blake’s time also equalled the third fastest time in the history of the event behind Bolt’s World and Olympic records of 9.58 and 9.63 respectively. Second place was taken by Olympic fourth place finisher and former world champion American, Tyson Gay (9.83). Jamaican men’s 4x100m Olympic gold medallist, Nesta Carter, equalled his season’s best of 9.95 for the bronze position. Bolt shaved one-hundredth of a second off his own meet record to win the men’s 200m convincingly in 19.58s in the quick race in which the top four men finished in 20 seconds or less. Netherlands’ fifth place London finisher, Churandy Martina, set a new national record of 19.85 for second place. Jamaican Nikel Ashmeade equalled his season best of 19.94 for third followed by compatriot Jason Young (20.00).

Double London 2012 bronze medallist, Lalonde Gordon, only managed to get past one person in the men’s 400m. Gordon placed seventh in a time of 45.62, 0.10 seconds behind his Olympic bronze run. Kirani James (Grenada) and Luguelin Santos (Dominican Republic) claimed the first two spots. The Grenadian Olympic champ, who ran past Santos at the London Games, won in 44.37 with Santos trailing in 45.03. Although she was able to improve her Olympic best throw of 18.36m, Cleopatra Borel just missed out on a medal when she finished fourth in the women’s shot put with a best throw of 18.50m on her third attempt. The event was won by Olympic champion, Valerie Adams (New Zealand), who captured her second post-Olympic win with a massive 20.73 heave to shatter the previous meet record of 20.37 set by Mandy Krieger (East Germany) in 1989. Olympic fifth place finisher, Michelle Carter (USA), scored a major upset when she out-threw Olympic silver medallist, Evgeniia Kolodko (Russia), for the second position. Carter threw the metal ball 19.60m on her second attempt to improve her Olympic best of 19.42, while Kolodko’s 18.64 throw was way behind her Olympic best of 19.31.

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