YOKOHAMA, Japan, Sept 19 2005 - Athens Olympic gold medallist Justin Gatlin defended his men’s 100 metres title while Allyson Felix won the women’s event to make it an American sprint double at the Yokohama track and field meet today.
Australia’s Sydney Olympic silver medallist Tatiana Grigorieva won the pole vault with a mark of 4.10m.
Gatlin clocked 10.04 seconds to beat Olusoji Fasuba of Nigeria into second and Christopher Williams of Jamaica into third with the two both marking 10.13 for a photo finish.
World 200m champion Felix won the women’s 100m in 11.05, beating her compatriot Me’Lisa Barber and Julia Chermoshanskaiya of Russia.
My hamstring in my leg was a little bit tight about 20 metres to the finishing line, but it was a good race, I think my performance was good, the competition was great,'' said the 23-year-old American. Gatlin, also the 100m and 200m world champion, had travelled from Shanghai after winning the inaugural Grand Prix Saturday but appeared satisfied with his performance at the end of the season. I’m very pleased with my season this year. I think this season is even better than 2004,’’ said Gatlin.
I feel I established better credit to my name, being more consistent this year, running bigger races, and hopefully next year I can do the same thing, run quality races in fast times on fast tracks.'' China's world silver medallist Liu Xiang and other world champions duly won their events, but undisputed pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia failed to clear 4.50 metres. I was so tired. I had a lot of competition, I won the summer and winter world championships, I set new world records, and I tried to do my best today, but I couldn’t,’’ said Isinbayeva, who also travelled from Shanghai.
``It was the first time that I failed to clear 4.50 metres, because I usually start from 4.60 or 4.70. I was too tired, so I started from 4.50.’’
Liu, who had equalled the world record of 12.91 seconds to win gold in the Athens Olympics, clocked 13.08 to win the 110m hurdles, beating Maurice Wignall of Jamaica and Sergey Demidyuk of Ukraine.
American world champion Dwight Phillips leapt 6.06m to beat Japan’s Daisuke Arakawa into second in the long jump.
Ivan Tikhon, who reached only one centimetre short of the world record by throwing a surprising 86.73m this season, won the hammer throw in 81.13m, 1.45m more than fellow Belarusian runner-up Vadim Devyatovskiy.
American Bershawn Jackson repeated his Helsinki performance to win the 400m hurdles in 48.24, while world silver medallist and teammate James Carter was fourth in 48.90 far behind him.
Women’s world champions, Nadezhda Ostapchuk of Belarus won the shot put with a 20.12 throw, while Olga Kuzenkova marked 71.78m to beat world fellow Russian bronze medallist Tatyana Lysenko to win the hammer throw.