There was never any question about whether or not two-time World 200 metres Champion Shericka would win the event at Thursday’s Wanda Diamond League, and though she didn’t promise a record time, many eyes were on the clock as she approached the finish in Zurich, Switzerland.

In the end, the Jamaican, showing very little signs of fatigue, stopped the clock 21.82s in a slight 0.8 metres per second head wind.

Jackson stormed off the curve and later opened up in the stretch run, leaving Great Britain’s Daryll Neita (22.25s), to finish best of the rest, with American Kayla White (22.33s) in third.

Bahamian Anthonique Strachan, who early contested the 100m, placed sixth in 22.65s.

Meanwhile, American Noah Lyles, also extended his rich vein of form, as he closed fast to top the men’s event in 19.80s, ahead of compatriot Erriyon Knighton (19.87s), with Great Britain’s Zharnel Hughes (19.94s) in third.

It was always expected to be an almighty clash between reigning women’s 4x100m relay champions United States and Olympic champions Jamaica. In the end, it was the Americans who prevailed in the final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday.

The American quartet of Tamari Davis, Twanisha Terry, Gabrielle Thomas and Sha’Carri Richardson, topped the event in a Championship record 41.03s Championship Record, ahead of their Jamaican counterparts – Natasha Morrison, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shashalee Forbes and Shericka Jackson –who ended in season’s best 41.21s.

Great Britain’s quartet of Asha Phillip, Imani Lansiquot, Bianca Williams and Daryll Neita, was third in a season’s best 41.97s.

During the event, Fraser-Pryce who has been braving a chronic knee injury, suffered what is reported to be a muscle strain, but like a warrior, pushed through the difficulty to safely hand off the baton, ensuring the country ended with a medal.

American sprinter Gabby Thomas paid homage to her Jamaican roots on Thursday ahead of Friday’s Diamond League meeting in Monaco where she will take on a crack field over 200m that includes reigning world 200m champion Shericka Jackson.

It is well known that Thomas has Jamaican roots, something she is proud of and she enjoys the love and support of the island’s rabid track fans. On Thursday, she chose to set the record straight about how she feels about her Jamaican heritage.

Asked about her Jamaican connection, the Olympic bronze medallist responded, “So, my grandfather is actually Jamaican, he lives there, he is from there. My dad didn’t grow up there but he is Jamaican and he always likes to bring the culture home with me and made sure I was proud to be Jamaican.

“And I do really love the fan base in Jamaica, they have really been so amazing and supportive and I do make sure everyone knows that I am Jamaican because I do believe that is where I get my fast roots from. I am not going to sugar coat it because that’s what it is. And we grew up loving track and my family has always been a big track family so I if could just run, run well and make my grandmother and my dad proud, then I would have done my job.

Thomas, who holds the world-leading time of 21.60, will face a tough field that includes NCAA champion Julien Alfred of St Lucia as well as the talented Britons, Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita and the dangerous Anthonique Strachan of the Bahamas, who has run a lifetime best of 22.15 so far this season

Daryll Neita out-shone her compatriot Dina Asher-Smith to claim victory in the women’s 200 metres at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm.

Defying poor weather conditions in the Swedish capital, Neita ran a superb bend from lane seven to take first place in a time of 22.50 seconds, with Asher-Smith second in 22.58 seconds.

Neita’s win – her first individual triumph in the competition – continues an intriguing rivalry heading into next week’s British Championships in Manchester.

In the women’s 800 metres, Laura Muir was forced to settle for sixth place, one place behind her compatriot Melissa Courtney-Bryant.

In the men’s 100 metres, Britain’s Reece Prescod recorded a time of 10.14 seconds to take second place behind winner Akani Simbine of South Africa in 10.03 seconds.

World Women’s 200m champion Shericka Jackson, keen to improve the first 30 metres of her 100m race, will line up against two of the year’s fastest women at the Birmingham World Indoor Final on Saturday.

Jackson, 28, boasts a personal best of 7.04, a time she ran in the final of the World Indoor Championships in Serbia in March 2022. However, she enters Saturday’s race having a pedestrian season-best 7.34 at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston on February 4.

Her time is significantly slower than the 7.04 run by Dina Asher Smith at the Init Indoor Meeting in Germany on January 27.

Asher-Smith’s compatriot Daryll Neita, the recently crowned British Indoor champion, has also run much faster this season having clocked 7.05 at the ISTAF Indoor Meeting in Berlin on February 10.

Jackson will be hoping for a much improved performance as she gears up for the outdoor season which involves another World Championships in Budapest in August.

 

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will be in Zurich this week after all.

Defending 100m World Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce continued her spectacular start to the 2022 season with a dominant win at Saturday’s Paris Diamond League.

Fraser-Pryce ran her second sub 10.7 clocking this season, equalling her own world-leading 10.67 for victory ahead of Great Britain’s Daryll Neita (10.99) and Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou (11.01).

The eight-time Olympic and nine-time World Championship medallist previously ran 10.67 at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi, Kenya on May 7.

Bahamian Olympic 400m Champions Steven Gardiner and Shaunae Miller-Uibo both also showed good form to secure 400m victories.

Gardiner, who is also the defending World Champion, produced a typically easy display of running to win in a season’s best 44.21, ahead of the Dominican Republic’s Lidio Andres Feliz (44.92) and South Africa’s Zakhiti Nene (44.99).

Miller-Uibo, on the other hand, went out extremely hard in the first three quarters of her race before shutting down with about 50 metres to go, to win in 50.10 ahead of Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek (50.24) and Anna Kielbasinska (50.28).

Bahamian Devynne Charlton ran a season’s best 12.63 to finish second in the 100m hurdles behind Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan who did a personal best and African record 12.41 for victory. Great Britain’s Cindy Sember ran 12.73 for third.

Cuba’s Jordan Diaz Fortun (17.66m) and Andy Diaz (17.65) were the top two finishers in the triple jump ahead of Olympic Champion Pedro Pichardo of Portugal (17.49m).

 

Reigning Olympic 110m hurdles champion Hansle Parchment ran a world-leading 13.09 to win at the Birmingham Diamond League, at the Alexander Stadium, in London on Saturday.

Parchment finished ahead of countryman and 2016 Olympic champion Omar McLeod who ran a season’s best 13.17 for second, while Spain’s Asier Martinez was third in 13.22.

Reigning Olympic bronze medallist in the Women’s 100m Shericka Jackson narrowly finished second in the Women’s blue-ribband event, running 11.12 to finish behind British 2019 200m World champion Dina Asher-Smith (11.11). Asher-Smith’s countrywoman Daryll Neita was third in 11.14.

Olympic 800m finalist Natoya Goule was third in the Women’s 800m in 2:00.13 behind Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain (1:58.63) and Renelle Lamote of France (1:59.53).

 

Elaine Thompson-Herah has withdrawn from the Birmingham Diamond League meeting on Saturday. The Tokyo Olympics triple gold medallist cited her withdrawal as precautionary.

Elaine Thompson-Herah said she would have loved to have gone under seven seconds in her 60m win in Birmingham on Saturday but she was to open her indoor season on a winning note.

It wasn’t the start she hoped for but Elaine Thompson-Herah was still better than the field as she raced to a season-best 7.08 at the World Indoor Tour Gold Meeting in Birmingham on Saturday.

The athlete dubbed the fastest woman alive lived up to the name as after a poor start that saw her trailing Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji, Thompson-Herah turned on the after-burners and stormed through the field to win over the Swiss, who ran a season-best 7.11 for second place.

Third was the vastly improved Daryll Neita, who crossed the line in a lifetime best 7.13.

Thompson-Herah’s winning time put her 0.01 ahead of Briana Williams as the fastest Jamaican woman over 60m this year.

 

 

With big goals in mind this season, five-time Olympic gold medalist Elaine Thompson-Herah is down to compete over 60m at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix – a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting – at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham on Saturday, February 19.

“I’m so excited to race in Birmingham to start my 2022 campaign,” said the fastest woman alive by virtue of her 10.54 100m run in Oregon last August.

“I have enjoyed competing in the UK over the years and there is always a special atmosphere at this venue. I ran my PB at this arena in 2017, so competing here means a lot to me.

“This year is a huge one. I have big goals for the World Athletics Championships later this summer, but first I’d like to give fans something to cheer about in Birmingham.”

Last summer, Thompson-Herah clocked 10.61, an Olympic record, to win the 100m at the Tokyo Olympics and then claimed the gold in the 200m in 21.53, the second-fastest time in history. In achieving the double, the 29-year-old Jamaican became the first woman in Olympic history to win both sprints at consecutive Olympic Games.

She added a third gold as a member of Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team that set a new national record of 41.02, the third-fastest time ever run for a relay.

In Birmingham, she will face Britain's two-time Olympic bronze medallist Daryll Neita, who also had a strong year in 2021. Last year she recorded lifetime best performances over 100m (10.93) and 200m (22.81) and finished eighth in the Olympic 100m final in Tokyo. Her 60m best is 7.21 from February 2021.

“The last time I raced Elaine indoors was in Birmingham in 2017 when she won, and I was fifth. Although she remains faster than me, I have to believe that the gap has closed since then and that with the backing of our brilliant British supporters, I can be more competitive this time around,” Neita said.

The Müller Indoor Grand Prix is the fifth World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting of 2022. There are seven Gold level meetings across the series, starting with Karlsruhe on 28 January and culminating in Madrid on 2 March.

Other athletes set to compete in Birmingham include Olympic pole vault champion Mondo Duplantis, world indoor 60m hurdles record-holder Grant Holloway, Olympic 1500m silver medallist Laura Muir and Olympic 800m silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson.

 

As she looks forward to what could be her final race this season on the final day of the Diamond League season in Zurich on Thursday, double, double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah said she kind of surprised herself with the incredible success she has experienced this year.

Since she won her first sprint double in 2016, the first woman to do so since Florence Griffith-Joyner at the Seoul Games in 1988, Thompson-Herah failed to win a medal at the 2017 and 2019 World Championships. However, at the Toyko 2020 Olympics this past summer, Thompson-Herah became the first woman in Olympic history to win back-to-back sprint doubles.

She set a new Olympic record of 10.51 in the 100m and set a lifetime best of 21.53 to win the 200m titles. She added a third gold medal as a member of Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team that set a new national record of 41.02, the third-fastest time in history.

Weeks later she won the 100m at the Prefontaine Classic in 10.54, the second-fastest time ever run and then followed up with 10.64 to finish second to Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in Lausanne and then 10.72 in Paris.

Speaking at a press conference this morning before she takes to the track on Thursday, the history-making Olympic champion said she has not yet had time to take it all in.

“It hasn’t sunk it as yet. I think because I knew I had a long season I don’t want to get too carried away, too excited and the focus is still continuing the season for next year and the years to come. After the season ends I can say hurrah, hooray and I watch back my videos and see what I have done and say yes, I did it,” she said.

“Being the fastest woman alive, I think I still haven’t known what I have done yet. Because I have put in all the work and I have achieved, it is not something I never expect myself to do but my expectations were not high but I think I surprised myself this entire season with everything that I have done so far.”

On Thursday, Thompson-Herah will line up against Dina Asher-Smith, Natasha Morrison, Javianne Oliver, Daryll Neita, Marie Jose Ta Lou and the Swiss pair of Ajla Del Ponte and Mujinga Kambundji in the 100m.

 

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