(SPORTSMAX) – All four of Jamaica’s challengers to the United States dominance over the 100-metre hurdles at the IAAF World Championships of Athletics, including the defending World champion, crashed out.
The Jamaicans, with four athletes in the semifinals of the hurdles expected casualties with four Americans and Sally Pearson also in the mix. However, nobody expected what was to happen.
Pearson won her heat in a fast 12.53 seconds to relegate the United States’ Nia Ali, 12.79, to the second automatic qualifying spot, while Netherlands heptathlete, Nadine Visser, 12.83, edged Jamaica’s Megan Simmonds, 12.93, to third.
Simmonds was on the bubble, but was to be run out of a non-automatic spot in the very next race, as Jamaica’s Yanique Thompson finished third in 12.88, to briefly hold the last spot.
But that wasn’t the story of the second heat, as defending World champion Danielle Williams of Jamaica crashed into the first hurdle and never recovered, knocking almost every other hurdle to finish fifth in a pedantic 13.14.
The United States’ Christina Manning got out early and controlled the race to win in a more conservative 12.71, while Belarus’ Alina Talay ran a season’s best 12.85 to finish second for the second automatic qualifier.
The Jamaicans had one more chance to have an automatic qualifier in the final. However, Burton, who wasn’t terrible over the hurdles, faded to fifth in 12.94 in a race won by another American, Dawn Harper Nelson in a season’s best 12.63.
Germany’s Pamela Dutkiewicz, was second in 12.71, but again, that was not the story of the heat, as world record holder, the United States’ Kendra Harrison hit the first hurdle and looked for all the world to be out of it, much in the same vein as the defending World champion.
Harrison, however, showed real resolve in recovering to finish third in 12.86, to hang on to a non-automatic qualifying spot, pushing out Thompson by just two hundredth of a second.