Usain Bolt wins Diamond League Paris 200m in fastest time of year

Jul 07, 2013 Sports

Usain Bolt recorded the fastest time of the year as he won the 200m at the Diamond League meeting in Paris. The six-time Olympic gold medallist clocked 19.73 seconds to beat fellow Jamaican Warren Weir (19.92) and France’s Christophe Lemaitre (20.07).
Olympic champion Greg Rutherford pulled out of the long jump, little more than a month before the World Championships, after sustaining a hamstring injury. Rutherford jumped 7.99m in round three before withdrawing from the event, which Jamaican Damar Forbes (8.11) won from Briton Chris Tomlinson (8.08).

Bolt dips across the line to take the Diamond League win in Paris.

Bolt, meanwhile, showed there was no reason to be concerned about his slow start to the season.
This was the Jamaican’s second outing over his favoured distance this year after clocking 19.79 in Oslo on June 13.
“I’m happy with myself,” said the 26-year-old, the world record holder in both sprint events. But he added: “I still need to work on a few mistakes.”
American Tyson Gay, Bolt’s main sprint rival, won the US World Championships trials in 19.74 last month. He was also victorious in the 100m at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on Thursday in the second fastest time of the year.
Rutherford, meanwhile, jumped 7.99m in round three of the long jump, won by Jamaican Damar Forbes (8.11) from Briton Chris Tomlinson (8.08), but withdrew in the next round. Britain’s European indoor 400m champion Perri Shakes-Drayton clocked 53.96 seconds to finish second in the women’s 400m hurdles behind Olympic bronze medallist Zuzana Hejnova (53.23).
France’s Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie (5.92m) claimed victory in the pole vault.
World and Olympic champion Kirani James, from Grenada, won the head-to-head with American Lashawn Merritt in the 400m, clocking the first time under 44 seconds in the world this year.
James (43.96) was followed home by Merritt, who finished second in a season’s best 44.09, with American Tony McQuay (44.84) in third. Reigning 10,000m Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba, of Ethiopia, won the 5,000m in 14 minutes 23.68 seconds, the fastest time in the world this year, while Britain’s Stephanie Twell (15.18.60) ran a season’s best to finish 11th.
Elsewhere, Jamaican double Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce also ran her best time of the year, 10.92 seconds, to win the 100m, while Olympic champion Robert Harting, from Germany, claimed victory in the discus with a throw of 67.04 metres.

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