ZAGRED, Croatia (CMC) – Jamaica’s die-hard sprinter Asafa Powell has become the first athlete in history to run sub-10 seconds in a 100-metre race over 100 times.
Powell, a former 100-metre record-holder, achieved the historic feat by posting 9.96 seconds to win the event at the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Zagreb, Croatia yesterday.
He ran sub-10 seconds for the 101st time, to finish ahead of American Mike Rodgers who was timed at 10.10 seconds and Ramil Guliyev of Turkey who was third in 10.18 seconds.
Veteran Caribbean sprinter Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis was fourth in 10.31.
Powell was the most outstanding Caribbean athlete on display as the region bagged a number of bronze medals from field and track events.
In the women’s 100 metres, Jamaica’s Simone Facey clocked 11.25 seconds to finish third behind American Candyce McGrone (11.10s) Sherone Simpson, also from Jamaica, placed fifth in 11.37 seconds while Trinidad and Tobago’s Semoy Hackett was 7th.
Jamaica also picked up another two bronze medals – Novlene Williams placed third in the women’s 400 metres posting a time of 51.81 while Andrew Riley was also third in the 110 metres hurdles in 13.52 behind Sergey Shubenkov of Russia who won in 13.11 and Pascal Martinot-Lagarde of France (13.50)
Trinidad and Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott picked up a bronze in the Javelin throw with a distance of 82.99 metres after the Germans Thomas Rohler (85.44) and Andreas Hofmann (84.98)