Shelly-Ann Fraser led a Jamaican sweep in the 100m yesterday to give her country its first Olympic gold in the women’s sprint a day after Usain Bolt did the same for the men.
The 21-year-old stormed down lane four to claim her first major international title in 10.78 seconds, 0.2 seconds ahead of Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart, who shared silver after a photo finish.
Simpson and Stewart were both awarded exactly the same time of 10.98, with former world champion Lauryn Williams the first of a trio of Americans in fourth.
Defending champion Yuliya Nestsiarenka of Belarus failed to reach the final after finishing fifth in her semi-final earlier yesterday evening.
Gulnara Galkina-Samitova set the second world record in as many days at the Olympic track, running the first sub-nine minute steeplechase in history to take the gold medal.
The Russian steadily stretched the field with her long, elegant stride until she was all alone and only had the clock to beat.
She did so, too, improving her own world record to 8 minutes, 58.81 seconds amid the cheers of the 91,000 fans at the Bird’s Nest.
While Usain Bolt’s 100m record came in the most fabled event, Galkina-Samitova got hers in the Olympic debut of the 3,000m steeplechase.
Eunice Jepkorir of Kenya took silver, almost nine seconds back, edging another Russian, Ekaterina Volkova, in a sprint finish.
Earlier, after a 7am start, a 38-year-old mother Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania won the first gold of the day. She beat reigning world champion and pre-race favorite Catherine Ndereba of Kenya to win a marathon that started at Tiananmen Square and never faced the haze of the city’s pollution.
The day would be capped at the buzzing Bird’s Nest, where two of the greatest African long-distance runners were to face off in the 10,000m — veteran Haile Gebrselassie against Ethiopian compatriot Kenenisa Bekele.
Primoz Kozmus won Slovenia’s first athletics gold medal in Olympic history, taking the hammer throw with his season’s best throw of 82.02m. He edged two Belarussians.
Vadim Devyatovskiy, who was fourth at the 2004 Athens Olympics, took silver this time with 81.61m. Three-time world champion Ivan Tsikhan won bronze with 81.51m.
Casting an early pall, reigning women’s 400m hurdles champion Fani Halkia of Greece tested positive for a banned drug and will not defend her title.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed yesterday that Halkia tested positive for a steroid at a Greek athletics team training camp in Japan before traveling to Beijing.
She was the second track athlete to test positive during the IOC’s Beijing anti-doping program, after the IAAF had made special efforts to catch as many as possible before competition starts. On Saturday, the Bulgarians announced that middle-distance runner Daniela Yordanova had withdrawn after testing positive for testosterone.
There was also bad news from Liu Xiang, China’s biggest track star. The defending champion in the 110m hurdles was still suffering pain from an inflamed hamstring.
Ahead of today’s opening heats, Liu has been training in seclusion for weeks amid questions about his fitness. Liu has competed rarely and in June saw his world record fall to Dayron Robles of Cuba.
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