Jamaica's Asafa Powell walks away after his 100m dash heat during the IAAF Golden League at Bislett Stadium in Oslo yesterday. Powell, who won the heat in 9.96 seconds, returned to win the final in 9.98. -REUTERS OSLO, Norway (CMC):
JAMAICAN SPRINT ace Asafa Powell logged a pair of sub-10 clockings as he sped to a predictable win among four Caribbean triumphs at the Golden League Bislett Games yesterday evening.
Powell won his heat easily and then captured the final in 9.98 seconds on an evening of high quality track and field, featuring several world leading performances.
Powell's Jamaican teammate Brigitte Foster-Hylton won the women's 100-metre hurdles and Bahamian Debbie Ferguson landed the women's 100 metres and there was a 400-metre B-Race triumph for Jamaican Kalise Spencer.
SMOOTH WIN
The 23-year-old Powell cruised to a smooth 9.96-second clocking to win the first of three qualifying 100-metre heats with the assistance of a +1.6 m/s wind, but on a chilly night he was not able to better his preliminary round time and went 0.02 seconds slower.
He was tested by American Olympic 200-metre champion Shawn Crawford who was a fairly close second in 10.02 seconds, followed by American Marcus Brunson (10.06) in third in a race that went into a -0.9 metres per second headwind.
"Normally I would win my races by five metres or so, but tonight it really wasn't anything spectacular," said Powell, whose world mark of 9.77 was equalled last month by American Justin Gatlin.
Powell said he made some mistakes in the second half of the race when American Shawn Crawford, Gatlin's training partner, crept up on him in the adjacent lane.
"In the last 50 metres or so I started lifting and not moving forward. I tried to go easy but then (Crawford) started pulling up on me. Next time I'll run my normal race," the 23-year-old Powell said.
POWELL, GATLIN CLASH
Powell was not sure when he would race Gatlin, but his manager Paul Doyle indicated that the pair would probably not meet at the Athens Super Grand Prix on July 3, dispelling recent rumours.
"That's up to (Gatlin) to decide," Powell said. "It will be really exciting. A lot of people will be looking forward to it and I'm really anticipating the day."
Other top Caribbean sprinters filled the next three spots Trinidadian Marc Burns (10.14) fourth, and the Jamaicans Dwight Thomas (10.16) and Michael Frater (10.16) fifth and sixth, respectively.
Ferguson, continued her solid comeback after taking the year off for surgery (fibroids) in 2005 and slammed the women's 100-metre field.
