LONDON: Marie-Josee Ta Lou showed that she will be a force to be reckoned with at the age of 34 at next month’s world championships as she claimed another Diamond League 100 metres win in a scorching 10.75 seconds in London on Sunday.

In the final Diamond League meeting before the August championships in Budapest, Ta Lou, Noah Lyles (200 metres), Femke Bol (400m hurdles) and Jackline Chepkoech (3,000m steeplechase) all produced stellar performances.

They were roared on by the biggest Diamond League crowd anywhere for five years as around 50,000 fans created a fabulous atmosphere as the event returned to London’s Olympic Stadium for the first time since 2019.

For about nine seconds they thought they were going to see local favourite Dina Asher-Smith triumph in the women’s 100 but she was overhauled to finish second in 10.85 seconds.

Flying past her was Ivory Coast’s Ta Lou to claim her third Diamond League win of the season, with slow-starting Jamaican Shericka Jackson third in 10.94. American champion ShaCarri Richardson withdrew from the race after feeling a tight hamstring in her warm-up.

“I hope to go back and train even harder for Budapest because I know it will take more to win there,” Ta Lou said. “I know my finish is strong but my start could be better and I need to improve it to make sure I can achieve my goal of winning gold.”

World champion Lyles also surged through late to win a stacked 200 metres as the American’s 19.47-second run improved his own fastest time in the world this year by two tenths.

Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo was second in an African record 19.50 while Zharnel Hughes, who took the 30-year old British 100m record last month, completed a notable double by also erasing John Regiss long-standing 200m mark with 19.73 in third.

Dutchwoman Bol also showed that she is in the hottest form when she blasted to a European record of 51.45 seconds in the 400m hurdles. Only American world record holder (50.68) Sydney McLaughlin has ever gone faster and Bol, second behind McLaughlin in last years world championship and third behind her at the Tokyo Olympics, will be hoping to finally bag global gold in Budapest.Her compatriot Sifan Hassan, who won the London Marathon in April, looked short of race sharpness as Ethiopian world champion Gudaf Tsegay swept past her old rival on the home straight to win the 5,000 metres in a personal best 14 minutes, 12.29 seconds.

In the 3,000m steeplechase Kenyan Jackline Chepkoech also produced a brilliant personal best of 8:57.35, making her the only athlete to go under nine minutes this year.

South Africa’s world record-holder and 2016 Olympic champion Wayde van Niekerk continued his climb back towards podium potential by winning the 400 metres in 44.36 seconds, just edging American Bryce Deadmon (44.40), on the track where he won the second of his world titles in 2017.

There was initial disappointment for the huge crowd when world and Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson withdrew from the final 800m event with illness, but compatriot Jemma Reekie stepped up to the plate in brilliant style to surge through for an unexpected victory.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2023