Usain Bolt of Jamaica is seen after he won the men’s 200 metres at the Stockholm Diamond League on Friday. Bolt defied blustering winds to record his first victory in three attempts on Swedish soil with a win over the 200 metres in the Stockholm Diamond League meeting. (Reuters
Reuters/Stockholm
Usain Bolt defied blustering winds on Friday to record his first victory in three attempts on Swedish soil with victory over the 200 metres in the Stockholm Diamond League meeting.
The Jamaican Olympic and world 100 and 200 champion cruised comfortably into the curve and powered home in 20.03 seconds.
“It’s awesome to get a first victory here,” Bolt told reporters, adding that he felt a little pain in one side of his back after the race.
“Generally it was a good race despite the fact that I wanted a better time.”
Despite the winds swirling around the 99-year-old stadium, there were some outstanding performances as the competitors fine-tuned their preparations before next month’s world championships in Daegu, South Korea.
Kenya’s Vivian Jepkemoi Cheruiyot ran the third-fastest women’s 5,000 ever, clocking 14:20.87. “If it wasn’t for the wind she could have taken the world record,” her manager Ricky Simms told Reuters.
A week after 77 people were killed in a bombing and shooting massacre in Norway by anti-Islam attacker Anders Behring Breivik, Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen was a popular winner in the men’s javelin, posting a winning throw of 88.43 metres.
“It’s hard after last week, but on the runway you don’t think about what happened,” he said.
Russia’s world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva returned from a hand injury to post a season’s best jump of 4.76 metres to win the women’s pole vault ahead of Germany’s Silke Spiegelburg.
Another athlete making a return, albeit for different reasons, was LaShawn Merritt. The American Olympic and world champion came second in the 400 metres in his first race after a 21-month ban for using a banned substance.
South African 800 metres world champion Caster Semenya had a disappointing evening, finishing eighth in a time of 2:01.28.
“It’s a little bit worrying, these are times when I should be running at least below two minutes,” Semenya told Reuters, adding that she and her coach would have to do some “deep thinking”.

South African body names new chief

Athletics South Africa named a new boss yesterday to replace banned chief Leonard Chuene, who was fired for financial misconduct and his controversial handling of the Caster Semenya gender scandal.
The athletics governing body named James Evans, Cheuene’s interim replacement, as president after holding elections in Johannesburg, the Sapa news agency reported.
“I hope open elections will bring stability to the sport,” Evans said.
Chuene and his entire board were suspended last November for their handling of world 800-metre champion Semenya’s gender row after he admitted lying to the nation when he said he knew nothing about tests to determine her sex.
He was fired in February after an investigation by the country’s Olympic committee found him guilty of 14 charges, including poor corporate governance, misappropriation of funds, tax evasion and mishandling “the Caster Semenya issue”.