Birthday girl Schippers loses and wins in Oslo

OSLO, Norway: World champion Dafne Schippers’s 25th birthday celebrations almost fell flat Thursday when the Dutch sprint star was disqualified twice from the 200m at the Oslo Diamond League before successfully appealing her exclusion.

Schippers, the 2015 world champion and silver medallist at the Rio Olympics last year, was originally disqualified for a false start.

She was then allowed to run under protest, taking an impressive victory in 22.30sec before she was disqualified again after the race.

Ivory Coast’s Murielle Ahoure was crowned the winner with a season’s best 22.74sec before the event took another twist later when Schippers was reinstated on appeal.

Schippers claimed that she had been distracted by a spectator standing up and banging their seat back.

“There was a lot of noise at the start and it was difficult to concentrate,” pleaded Schippers.

Canada’s triple medallist from Rio, André De Grasse, won the men’s 100m in 10.01sec to defeat Britain’s Chinjidu Ujah (10.02), the winner in Rome last week, and Ben Youssef Meité of Ivory Coast (10.03).

“It’s my best for the season. I hope it will continue in Stockholm on Sunday and where I want to get under 10 seconds for the first time before the Canadian trials for the world championships,” said Grasse.

Chilly temperatures shattered hopes of world records at the famed Bislett stadium which has witnessd 62 of them down the years.

Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barhim recorded 2.38m in the high jump, a centimetre’s improvement on his best for the year.

It also bettered the stadium record of 2.35m set in 1989 by the only man who has jumped higher than him, Cuba’s world record holder at 2.45m, Javier Sotomayor.