Bolt grabs 200m gold at a canter
Jamaican superstar wins his seventh world title as he gives his rivals no chance in sprint
Usain Bolt underlined his amazing sprinting prowess yesterday by powering to a third successive world 200 metres title at the world championships for his seventh world gold medal.
The 26-year-old Jamaican destroyed the field to finish in 19.66 seconds, teammate Warren Weir claiming silver in a personal best of 19.79 seconds and American Curtis Mitchell taking bronze in 20.04.
It was Bolt's seventh world gold medal after winning the 100 and 200m at the Berlin worlds in 2009, the 200m in Daegu in 2011, the 100m in Moscow and golds as part of the winning Jamaican 4x100m relay squads in both 2009 and 2011. He also has two silvers (200m, 4x100m relay) from the 2007 worlds in Osaka.
His burgeoning medal haul also includes unprecedented treble golds from both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
Bolt can draw level with the present mark of eight world gold medals won by retired American duo Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson when he races the 4x100m relay today.
Earlier, Ugandan Stephen Kiprotich added the world marathon gold to his Olympic title yesterday, again shutting out strong Ethiopian and Kenyan squads.
The Ugandan prison warden clocked two hours, nine minutes and 51 seconds around the streets of Moscow, with Ethiopian duo Lelisa Desisa (2:10.12) and Tadese Tola (2:10.23) claiming silver and bronze respectively.
It was Uganda's second world gold medal after Dorcus Inzikuru won the 3,000m steeplechase at the 2005 worlds in Helsinki, and only the African nation's fourth medal ever.
"I'm very happy the race was competitive," said Kiprotich. "I realised I could win after 40km. Then I just kept pushing. Meseret Defar regained the women's 5,000m title, coming out of the slipstream of Ethiopian teammate Almaz Ayana to win gold with a strong finish.
Ethiopia also won the 10,000 in Moscow with Tirunesh Dibaba taking gold during the opening weekend.
Meanwhile, Brianna Rollins of the United States won the women's 100m hurdles with a late surge to the finish.
Rollins won in 12.44 seconds, just ahead of Olympic gold medalist Sally Pearson of Australia. Pearson, who was also the defending champion, took silver in 12.50, while Tiffany Porter of Britain earned bronze in 12.55.
