With a 12.92-soncond championship record, Cuban hurdler Dayron
Robles on Sunday shone on the last day of the Stuttgart IAAF World
Athletics Final.
Dayron Robles stormed to a 12.92 seconds win in the 110m
Hurdles, which is a Central American and Carribean record.
The is the 20-year-old Cuban's first sub 13 seconds time, he
also tied the fifth fastest time ever run in the event.
Less than a year before the Olympic final in Beijing, he tied
Liu Xiang's world lead and improved the World Athletics Final
record which had been held by the Chinese by one hundredth of a
second.
Robles is really closing in on Liu Xiang, who was absent from
the IAAF Final, after a disappointing World Championships' final in
Osaka, where he had placed only fourth.
"I had been very well prepared for Osaka and it was then very
disappointing not to win a medal. But I have proved something
today. I knew that there would be a great field here in Stuttgart
and hoped that it would be a fast race," Robles said.
Behind Liu (12.88), Dominique Arnold of the United States
(/12.90) and Colin Jackson (Great Britain), who had clocked 12.91
here in Stuttgart in 1993, Robles is now the fourth fastest athlete
of all-time list, tied together with Americans Roger Kingdom and
Allen Johnson.
There had been a surprise in the 200 meters as well. Former
Gambian Jaysuma Saidy Ndure, who now competes for Norway, took the
event clocking 19.89 seconds, which makes him the fourth fastest
European ever at the distance.
"I believed that I would be able to run that fast -- and today I
finally showed it," said the 23-year-old sprinter, who had come to
Norway five years ago.
Edwin Cheruiyot Soi was another one who performed extraordinary.
A year ago the 21 year-old Kenyan had placed second in the 3000 and
5000m in Stuttgart. Now he won both events. It was the first time
in the men's events that a runner took these two events at the
World Athletics Final.
The 3000m Steeplechase lived up to the expectations. Kenyan
runner Paul Koech confirmed that at least at this stage of the
season he is number one.
The 25-year-old, who had clocked the world lead of 7:58.80
minutes nine days ago in Brussels, just missed another sub eight
minutes time in the end with 8:00.67.
For the women's events, US sprinter Carmelita Jeter won the 100m
in 11.10 from her teammate Allyson Felix.
However, it was another US sprinter, Sanya Richards, who
produced an even better race in the 400 m. Tying her world lead of
49.27 she was almost one second ahead of Jamaican sprinter Novlene
Williams and World champion Christine Ohuruogu from Great
Britain.
As in previous races and in Osaka, Kenyan World Champion Janeth
Jepkosgei took the lead early in the race, kept the speed high and
ran to a World Athletics Final record of 1:57.87 minutes in the 800
meters.
(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2007)