PARIS, 6 July 2003 — Allen Johnson, Gabriela Szabo, Mehdi Baala and Tatyana Lebedeva set year’s bests at the Paris Golden League meeting on Friday in a competition billed as a dress rehearsal for next month’s world championships.
American world champion Johnson clocked 12.97 seconds in the 110 meters hurdles while Romanian Gabriela Szabo unleashed a devastating final kick in the women’s 3,000 to defeat Moroccan Zhor El Kamch in eight minutes 34.09 seconds.
France’s European champion Baala won the men’s 1,500 meters in a national record of 3:30.98 while Russian Lebedeva cleared 15.12 meters in the women’s triple jump.
US champion Bernard Williams won the men’s 100 meters in 10.05 seconds ahead of Nigerian Deji Aliu and Olympic and world champion Maurice Greene, who false started. Williams, who finished behind compatriots Greene and Tim Montgomery in the 2001 Edmonton world championships, clocked 10.05 seconds, equaling his personal best this year. Chandra Sturrup of the Bahamas took the honors in the women’s 100, out-pacing American champion Kelli White and France’s former European champion Christine Arron.Sturrup clocked 11.01. White took her revenge in the 200 meters with a winning time of 22.43 ahead of Frenchwoman Muriel Hurtis and American teenager Allyson Felix.
Three-time world champion Gail Devers won the 100 meters hurdles in 12.49, a season’s best for the 36-year-old American.
Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie, the Olympic 10,000 meters champion and world record holder who has just returned to the track after missing last year’s outdoor season because of a calf injury finished second in the 5,000 meters.
Kenyan Abraham Chebii won in 12:53.37 with Gebrselassie second in 12:54.36.
France’s Bouabdallah Tahri equaled the European record and broke the French national record in the men’s 3,000 meters steeplechase with a time of 8:06.91. He finished third behind Kenyan’s Stephen Cherono and Paul Koech.
