Oblique Seville, Melissa Jefferson Wooden win 100m golds
TOKYO: Jamaica’s Oblique Seville outpaced Kishane Thompson and Noah Lyles for gold in the men’s 100m at the World Athletics Championships on Sunday while Melissa Jefferson Wooden grab the gold in the women’s event.
Read more: France’s Gressier takes 10,000m gold in shock Tokyo upset
Seville timed a personal best of 9.77sec for the victory with Thompson taking silver in 9.82sec while defending champion Lyles claimed bronze with a time of 9.89sec.
Earlier, Wooden produced a stunning performance to win the women’s 100 metre world title, as the 24-year-old American timed 10.61sec in a new championship record, the joint third-fastest time in history.
Jamaican youngster Tina Clayton took silver in 10.76sec with Olympic champion Julien Alfred third in 10.94sec.
JAMAICAN DELIGHT
Later, Seville expressed his delight at claiming Jamaica’s first men’s world sprint title in a decade in front of the man he described as his inspiration: Usain Bolt.
Jamaican sprinting legend Bolt, with 11 world titles and eight Olympic golds to his name, was ecstatic as Seville ripped through the line at Tokyo’s National Stadium in a personal best.
Bolt was the last male Jamaican sprinter to win a world title, when he claimed the 100-200m double at the 2015 Beijing world championships.
Thompson took silver for a first Jamaican 1-2 in a global champs since the 2012 Olympics, while defending champion Lyles of the United States rounded out the podium in 9.89sec.
“It is just tremendous feeling to compete in front of Usain here in Tokyo,” said Seville, who finished an agonising fourth at the last two world championships.
“His coach (Glen Mills) is my coach and I know that both of them are very proud of me right now.”
Seville added: “They were like, ‘(you) are going to be the world champion’. But I have proved, in front of him, that I am a champion and I am very proud of that.
Read more: Barshim, three-time former champion, out of World Athletics
DREAMING OF THIS MOMENT
“I have been dreaming of this moment,” said Wooden, who will bid to achieve the sprint double in the 200m.
She remarked, “Instead of putting the pressure on myself and taking it as something overwhelming, I was just embracing it.”
However, there was to be no medal farewell, at least in the individual event, for five-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
The 38-year-old Jamaican legend — her hair dyed in the national flag colours on her last appearance in a major individual final — found her legs just could not keep up with the younger rivals and she finished an honourable sixth.
