Olympic long jump gold medalist Greg Rutherford of Britain has repeated his London Games triumph over Australian Mitchell Watt at the IAAF Melbourne World Challenge.
Rutherford won with a leap of 8.10 meters Saturday in the fourth round, while London silver medalist Watt jumped 8.01 to again finish second. Fellow Australian and reigning Commonwealth Games champion Fabrice Lapierre was third with 7.99.
“Every competitor always wants to win. Mitch is a friend of mine, so it is not like a bad competition ever,” said Rutherford. “Ultimately, he wants to beat me and I want to beat him but we are always still mates.
“An 8.10 meter isn’t anything massively special but blimey we are in the early part of the year, and waking up this morning I didn’t expect to be able to jump that well so early.”
Six-time Australian champion Josh Ross won the 100-meter race while American Wallace Spearmon, fourth in the 100, won the 200.
The 100 race was supposed to feature former world record-holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica, but he withdrew earlier in the week with a left hamstring injury.
It was the same ailment that forced Powell to pull up in the 100 final at last year’s Olympics, which was won by fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt.
Calvin Smith Jr. of the United States won the 400 in 46.25 seconds to maintain some family racing history in Australia.
Newly crowned world cross-country champion Japhet Korir of Kenya won the 5,000 Saturday in 13 minutes, 31.94 seconds.
Other international men’s winners included James Magut of Kenya in the 1,500, Justin Gaymon in the 400 hurdles and fellow American Dusty Jonas in the high jump.
Susan Kuijken of the Netherlands won the women’s 1,500.
