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| Merritt and Felix dedicate gold to Owens |
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Sunday, August 23, 2009
BERLIN: United States stars LaShawn Merritt and Allyson Felix dedicated the gold medals they won on Friday at the World Athletics Championships to the memory of compatriot Jesse Owens.
Olympic champion Merritt dethroned two-time defending world champion Jeremy Wariner in the 400m, while Felix picked up a hat-trick of world 200m titles.
The pair both said they were inspired by the spirit of black sprinter Owens who won 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100m gold medals at the Olympic Games in the capital of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany 73 years ago.
Felix, 23, clocked 22.02sec to beat Jamaica's Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell-Brown as Merritt added world gold to his Beijing Olympics victory. The American, who finished second at the Osaka 2007 worlds, clocked a world lead of 44.06sec over 400m, far off his Beijing Games time of 43.75sec, the fifth fastest time ever.
"This medal is for Jesse Owens, my family and my fans," said Merritt. "I had run this race a million times in my head. Wariner is a great champion, but I really wanted it bad."
Compatriot Wariner timed 44.60sec for silver with Trinidad's Renny Quow taking bronze in 45.02sec.
There was some consolation for Wariner, who also won world gold at Helsinki in 2005, in that he did not suffer a similarly large margin of defeat to Merritt as he had done at the Beijing Olympics.
Felix also said Owens's memory had inspired her to victory. "It's really special to win a third world title. I wanted to do it in this stadium, represent my country and make Jesse Owens proud," she said.
Newly-crowned 1500m champion Yusuf Saad Kamel of Bahrain moved closer to repeating his father Billy Konchellah's feat of winning the world 800m crown when he qualified for Sunday's final.
The Kenyan-born runner, who won 1500m gold on Wednesday, produced his trademark last-gasp burst of speed to nip in ahead of Russia's former Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovsky at the line in 1min 45.01sec.
Borzakovsky had kicked with 200m to go and just held off defending champion and Olympic bronze medallist Alfred Yego as Kamel outsprinted everyone for the heat win.
Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia won the men's high jump title. The 28-year-old - three times a silver medallist - won with a best jump of 2.32m edging out Kyriakos Ioannou of Cyprus (2.32m) on countback.
The biggest cheer of the night around the Berlin stadium came when Germany's Raul Spank cleared 2.32m to claim a share of bronze with Poland's Sylwester Bednarek.
In the men's 4x100m relay heats, reigning champions the United States were disqualified. The US were thrown out because of problems with the final handover from Shawn Crawford to Darvis Patton. The IAAF later rejected the team's appeal over the disqualification.
The relays were delayed by nearly 45 minutes due to a torrential rainstorm which left huge puddles on the Berlin Olympic Stadium track.
The USA team of Terrence Trammell, Michael Rodgers, Crawford and Patton had clocked 37.97sec, with Britain's Simeon Williamson, Tyrone Edgar, Marlon Devonish and Harry Aikines-Aryeetey the next fastest in the heats with 38.11sec.
With Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt celebrating his 23rd birthday on Friday, the reigning world and Olympic 100m and 200m champion was given a day off by his team. In his absence Lerone Clarke, Michael Frater, Steve Mullings and Dwight Thomas were left to carry the baton, with Frater the only Olympic gold medal winner from Beijing on the track.
Italy's quartet ran a season's best of 38.52sec to claim a surprise win while the Jamaicans finished second in the heat in 38.60sec, but they are sure to raise their standard when Bolt returns in the final.
Australia's Dani Samuels won the women's discus when the 21-year-old threw 65.44m ahead of Cuba's Yarelis Barrios (65.31m) while Nicoleta Grasu of Romania took bronze (65.20m).
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ISSN 1563-9479 
