ROME, 10 July 2005 — Olympic champion Justin Gatlin on Friday fired out a warning to his rivals ahead of next month’s world championships, scorching to an impressive sub-10sec win in the 100m at the Golden League meeting here.
Despite the late withdrawals of Jamaican world record holder Asafa Powell and Portugal’s Athens silver medalist Francis Obikwelu, Gatlin looked at ease beating a quality field in a season’s best 9.96sec.
Gatlin, whose time was the fourth fastest this year, gained revenge on Ghana’s veteran Aziz Zakari and Frenchman Ronald Pognon, who both beat the American at the Lausanne Super Grand Prix meeting on Tuesday.
American Scott Leonard edged Pognon into fourth, while Zakari clocked 10.06sec for second place.
“I had a shaky performance in my first European race of the season in Lausanne but today I came back victorious,” said the 23-year-old Gatlin.
Gatlin has also targeted Powell’s world record of 9.77sec.
Gatlin beat the Jamaican in their most recent encounter in Eugene, Oregon, on June 4, when they both ran a wind-assisted 9.84sec, with the American given the verdict on the photo-finish.
The battle for supremacy in the highly competitive 110m hurdles saw the event go to American Dominique Arnold in 13.11sec, with China’s Olympic champion and joint world record holder Liu Xiang 0.13sec down in second.
Ladji Doucoure of France finished third in 13.29sec in a race which four-time world champion American Allen Johnson had pulled out of after failing to shake off an ankle injury that also prevented him competing in Lausanne.
In a cracking finish to the 3000m steeplechase, Qatar’s Kenyan-born world champion and record holder Saeed Saif Shaheen beat Kenya’s Paul Kipsiele Koech in a sprint finish to keep up his run of successive wins in the event.
Shaheen was overtaken on the final lap but the 22-year-old fought back to take the dip in 7:56.34 and stretch his winning run to 20 races.
Kenya’s Isaac Songok, who finished 12th in the 1500m in Athens last summer, took advantage of the absence of Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele to beat home world champion Eliud Kipchoge in the 5000m in a personal best of 12:52.29. But Songok’s compatriot Daniel Kipchirchir was beaten to first place in the 1500m by a strong finish from Bahrain’s Moroccan-born Rashid Ramzi, who won in 3:30.37.
In the 800m, Kenyan 18-year-old Alfred Yego shocked Olympic silver medalist Mbulaeni Mulaudzi of South Africa with a great sprint finish to win in 1:44.62.
Americans James Carter and Tyree Washington won the 400m hurdles and 400m in 48.41 and 45.02sec respectively.
In the long jump another American, Olympic gold medalist Dwight Phillips, outclassed the field to win by a mile in 8.39m.
In field events, Estonia’s Andrus Varnik beat Paris Golden League winner Tero Pitkamaki of Finland into second in the javelin with a best throw of 85.50m.
Olympic silver medalist Toby Stevenson won the pole vault with 5.81m.
But Sweden’s Stefan Holm was beaten into third in the high jump, Ukraine’s Andrey Sokolovskiy winning with 2.38m.
In the women’s 100m, the evergreen Christine Arron, a convincing winner in front of her home fans in Paris, was again ahead of the field, beating home five Americans in 11.03sec.
Allyson Felix, the teenage prodigy who won 200m silver in the Athens Olympics, finished third behind MeLisa Barber.
American Sanya Richards reproduced her early season form to easily win the 400m in 49.82sec while compatriot Anjanette Kirkland wrapped up the 100m hurdles in 12.57sec.
Reigning 400m hurdles world champion Jana Pittman again failed to beat US champion Lashinda Demus, who had the better of the Australian throughout the race despite flagging in the last 20m. The 800m was won by Hasna Benhassi of Morocco in 1:58.41, and the 1500m by Mestawat Tadesse of Ethiopia.
An Ethiopian trio led by Tirunesh Dibaba in 14:32.57 dominated the 5000m, leaving the Paris winner Edith Masai of Kenya in fourth.
Reigning world champion Tatyana Lebedeva, who won Olympic long jump gold and triple jump bronze in Athens, continued her dominant form, winning the triple jump with a best of 15.03m.
The results mean that only Arron, Demus and Lebedeva still qualify for the Golden League’s one-million-dollar jackpot, handed out to one or more athletes who win at all six meetings and compete at the finals in Monaco on Sept. 9-10.
