South Africa’s Akani Simbine (left) and Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson compete in men’s 100m yesterday.
Keqiao: Akani Simbine won a thrilling 100m in a photo finish yesterday at the second Diamond League (DL) meeting of the season while Armand “Mondo” Duplantis dominated the pole vault but failed to break his own world record.
South Africa’s Simbine claimed victory in Keqiao, near Shanghai in China, by dipping under the line in 9.98 seconds, beating Jamaican Olympic silver medallist Kishane Thompson by a whisker (9.99).
Simbine, who ran 9.90sec in Gaborone last month and won last week in the Diamond League opener in China’s Xiamen (9.99), said he was “not happy with the start”.
“It is just frustrating that I did not get it right today but I was at least able to make up for that mistake and get the win,” the 31-year-old said.
Duplantis triumphed once more with minimum fuss. He failed in his three attempts to clear 6.28m, instead comfortably winning with a meeting-record 6.11m.
Olympic and world champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine won the high jump as the only woman to clear 2.00m. She also triumphed in Xiamen.
Karsten Warholm underlined his superiority in the men’s 400m hurdles but did not trouble his world record of 45.94 seconds, set at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
The 29-year-old clocked 47.28sec, the world’s fastest time so far this year. In the men’s 400m, Paris gold medallist Quincy Hall was well off the pace, finishing in 8th place in 45.99sec after coming back from injury. Fellow American Christopher Bailey won in 44.17sec.
Another from the United States, Cordell Tinch, ran the fourth-fastest time ever in the men’s 110m hurdles as he romped home in 12.87sec.
