KINGSTON, Jamaica: Two-time Olympic reigning sprint double champion Usain Bolt won the 100-meter title at the Jamaican Athletics Championships on Friday night to qualify for August’s World Championships.
Bolt, who broke free from the pack after 60 meters, shut it down as he crossed the line in 9.94 seconds, with rising star and training partner Kemar Bailey-Cole second in 9.98 and Nickel Ashmeade third in 9.99.
Ashmeade is the training partner of Tyson Gay, who ran 9.75 to win at the US Track and Field Championships earlier Friday.
Bolt, when asked about Gay’s impressive run, said, “trials is always to make the team, because it’s at the (world) championships it really matters. I had ran 9.63, 9.58, so I have set the (worlds qualifying) standard already.
“It was all about getting through it injury free and that’s what I had done,” Bolt said.
Gay and Bolt figure to have a showdown in the 100 at the World Championships in August at Moscow along with defending champion Yohan Blake of Jamaica.
Blake did not run in the Jamaican meet because of a right thigh injury, but as a reigning champion, Blake will still be eligible to run at the worlds despite not competing this week at the Jamaican trials.
Considering what elements of his race needed work, Bolt said, “a lot more things to work on, my start and my drive phase need some more work.”
Asafa Powell, who has struggled all season with injuries, finished a disappointing seventh in 10.22.
In the women’s 100m, Kerron Stewart won in 10.96 ahead of Sherone Simpson in 11.03 with Schillonie Calvert third in 11.07.
“It was a good time, because I had not dipped under 11 seconds all season, but I knew it was in me,” Stewart said.
In the men’s 400m hurdles, Leford Green won in 49.20 ahead of Annsert Whyte in 49.30 with Isa Phillips third in 49.59.
Francine Simpson won the women’s long jump with a leap of 6.35m.
Gay impresses with 9.75 at US trials
In Des Moines, Iowa, Tyson Gay won the 100m at the US athletics championships in an impressive 9.75sec on Friday to stamp himself America’s top World Championships challenger to Jamaican Usain Bolt.
Gay, trailing out of the blocks, exploded near the midway point and powered home to win in the fastest time in the world this year.
Justin Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic gold medallist who handed six-time Olympic champion Bolt a rare defeat in Rome this month, just couldn’t match Gay in the closing stages.
Running warily with a mild right hamstring strain, Gatlin finished second in 9.89.
Charles Silmon seized the third World Championships berth on offer by the narrowest of margins, finishing third in 9.98sec (9.972) with Michael Rodgers relegated to fourth by just two-thousandths of a second (9.974).
The top trio will spearhead the US challenge to six-time Olympic gold medallist Bolt and his fellow Jamaican sprinters at the World Championships in Moscow on August 10-18.
Gay had served notice in Friday’s semifinals, with a wind-aided 9.75, and he proved it was no fluke in a final run in a legal wind of 1.1m/sec.
“I don’t really think it’s a statement,” said Gay, who has been bedevilled by injuries since winning three gold medals at the 2007 World Championships.
“I wanted to run faster, because you get the adrenaline from watching the females run and then you see the wind, the conditions are perfect ... You want to take advantage of that,” added Gay, who improved on his own 2013 world-leading 9.86sec.
Gay, 30, said he still had plenty of room for improvement.
“I was trying to get a good start in the finals. That’s probably why I didn’t, because I was trying,” he said. “I should have been a little bit more relaxed, but at the same time the victory feels good.”
English Gardner, who turned professional this month after winning the US collegiate 100m crown, won the women’s 100m in 10.85sec.
Her time, run in a wind of 1.8m/sec, matched the fastest in the world this year posted by Barbara Pierre in the semi-finals earlier on Friday. Both were better than the previous season-best 10.93 of Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
In the final, Pierre got out fast, but faded in the stretch as Gardner, now training with coach John Smith, came on strong to finish ahead of collegian Octavius Freeman (10.87) and Alexandria Anderson (10.91).
The top three will compete at Moscow along with reigning world champion Carmelita Jeter, who sat out the championships with a thigh injury but will still be able to use her bye into the worlds.
Among the day’s other finals, Sharon Day won the heptathlon with a total of 6,550 points, best in the world this year.
