BERLIN, (Reuters) – Usain Bolt was back on the track but the biggest roar of the world championships so far was reserved for local hero Robert Harting when he won the men’s discus with a monster throw on his final attempt yesterday.
There were also great distance performances as Yusuf Saad Kamel won a thrilling men’s 1,500 metres and 18-year-old South African Caster Semenya delivered a crushing performance in the women’s 800 only hours after the IAAF announced she was being gender tested after suspicions about her rapid progress.
Bolt progressed impressively to the 200 metres final with an all-too-easy 20.08 then watched team mate Brigitte Foster-Hylton mine more gold for Jamaica with a 12.51 seconds victory in the women’s 100 hurdles.
Compatriot Delloreen Ennis-London added to the island’s tally with bronze (12.55) behind Priscilla Lopes-Schliep of Canada (12.54).
For once, Bolt was upstaged.
Discus is a popular event in Germany and there was huge disappointment earlier in the day when 41-year-old three-times champion Franka Dietzsch failed to make the women’s final and then announced her retirement.
Things did not look too good for the home fans later when Pole Piotr Malachowski twice broke his national record to lead with 69.15 metres after five rounds.
Berlin-based Harting was sitting in second but, after revving the crowd into a frenzy, he then found a 69.43 effort to snatch gold and set off on a new take on the lap of honour as he hoisted the dancing six-foot furry mascot on to his shoulder.
It has certainly been a championship to remember for Semenya who a year ago had a best time that would not have won a club race.
Having improved by eight seconds in 12 months, she accidentally tripped defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei in the heats and put her out of the race.
Then, after qualifying fastest for the final, her preparations were rocked by the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) announcement that she was undergoing a complex gender verification test.
Showing admirable focus for a teenager, she put all the distractions behind her to win the final with an awesome display of front running, securing gold in 1 minute, 55.45 seconds — slicing more than another second off her best time.
Jepkosgei, reinstated by officials after her heats trip, finished second, but more than 15 metres adrift.
Kamel, one of a throng of leading Kenyans who switched allegiance to the Middle East earlier in the decade, spent much of this year trying to engineer a return from Bahrain but ended the night draped in the flag of his adopted nation.
Ethiopian Deresse Mekonnen tried to win it from the front but his brave effort fell just short as Kamel, the son of a former twice 800 world champion Billy Konchellah, emerged from the pack 70 metres out to run him down and win in 3:35.93.
Mekonnen took silver while 2007 champion Bernard Lagat, a Kenyan-turned American, held off Asbel Kiprop and Augustine Choge, two Kenyans actually running in Kenya vests, for bronze. All the favourites in the women’s 200 advanced safely to Thursday’s semi-final with their final on Friday. American Marshevet Hooker was the fastest with 22.51, though fellow American and defending champion Allyson Felix also looked sharp.
LaShawn Merritt ran 44.37, the fastest time in the world this year, to lead the way into Thursday’s men’s 400 metres final, with Trinidad & Tobago’s Rennie Quow and American Jeremy Wariner not far behind.
At the halfway stage of the decathlon, Ukraine’s Oleksiy Kasyanov led the way with 4,555 points, 43 ahead of Cuba’s Yunior Diaz with American Trey Hardee third, one point back.
Bolt and the 200 final is the undoubted highlight of today’s programme but there are also finals in the men’s 110 hurdles, women’s 400 hurdles and women’s long jump, as well as the conclusion of the decathlon.
