American Ashton Eaton retained the decathlon world title in the Bird’s Nest Stadium on Saturday, breaking his own world record by scoring 9,045 points. It was the first world record of the championships.
The day also saw Usain Bolt secure a sweep of the sprint golds at a world championships for the third time by anchoring Jamaica to the 4x100 metres relay title.
Not to be outdone, Jamaica’s women retained their world crown in the 4x100m, with Britain’s Mo Farah winning the 5,000m to make it three distance doubles in a row, including the London Olympics.
In the gruelling multi-discipline event, Eaton had finished the first day on 4,703 points, well ahead of medal challengers Warner Freimuth and the second German, Kai Kazmirek.
Eaton’s procession towards the gold continued on Saturday with a 13.69 second 110m hurdles, a 43.34 metre discus throw, 5.20 metres in the pole vault and a 63.63 metre javelin throw.
The 27-year-old needed to run 4:18.25 in the 1,500m, the last event, to score the 824 points needed to break the record.
After two gruelling days and the nine previous events, Eaton set off with a carefully-paced run and after a hard-fought final lap he stopped the clock at 4:17.52, to add 829 points to his tally and set a new mark.
“I knew with 300 metres to go that I was behind, and I said, ‘Oh crap! I better go’,” Eaton told reporters after the event.
In the men’s 4x100, Bolt shot down not only Justin Gatlin but the cavalry too, anchoring rampant Jamaica to a fourth successive title as the USA sprinters imploded.
Any faint hopes the Americans had of ambushing Bolt’s latest treble attempt went up in smoke when Tyson Gay’s final handover to Mike Rodgers was deemed illegal and they were dramatically disqualified to give host China a sensational silver.
“I saw the [US] mess at 300m and was glad we were not in it,” said Bolt after claiming an astonishing 11th world title. “It’s called pressure.
“They won the world relays (earlier this year) and the pressure was on them. I told you I would come back here and win.”
Anchored by the six-times Olympic champion, the Jamaicans have now won all world and Olympic sprint titles since 2008.
Elsewhere the irrepressible Farah broke Kenyan Caleb Ndiku’s brave resistance with an electrifying burst in the home straight to win in 13 minutes, 50.38 seconds.
Dismal showIndian athletes continued their dismal performance as Vikas Gowda finished a poor ninth in the final of the men’s discus event. He could come up with a best effort of just 62.24m, well below his season’s best of 65.75m and the National record of 66.28m.
Earlier in the day, the Indian women’s 4x400m relay team and men’s 50km race walkers brought up the rear with disappointing performances.
Sandeep Kumar and Manish Singh Rawat finished 26th and 27th respectively out of 38 athletes who completed the walk event, with timings of 3:57:03 and 3:57:11.
Then the Indian women’s 4x400m team crashed out at the heats stage.
The quartet of Tintu Luka, M.R. Poovamma, Debasree Majumdar and Jisna Mathew finished last in an eight-team heat No. 2 with a season’s best timing of 3:29.08s.
The results:
Men’s 50km walk: 1. Matej Toth (Svk) 3:40:32s, 2. Jared Tallent (Aus) 3:42:17, 3. Takayuki Tanii (Jpn) 3:42:55.
5000m: 1. Mohamed Farah (GBr) 13:50.38s, 2. Caleb Mwangangi Ndiku (Ken) 13:51.75, 3. Hagos Gebrhiwet (Eth) 13:51.86.
Decathlon: 1. Ashton Eaton (USA) 9,045 points, 2. Damian Warner (Can) 8,695, 3. Rico Freimuth (Ger) 8,561.
4x100m: 1. Jamaica (Nesta Carter, Asafa Powell, Nickel Ashmeade, Usain Bolt) 37.36s, 2. China 38.01, 3. Canada 38.13.
Discus: 1. Piotr Malachowski (Pol) 67.40m, 2. Philip Milanov (Bel) 66.90, 3. Robert Urbanek (Pol) 65.18; 9. Vikas Gowda (Ind) 62.24.
Women: 800m: 1. Marina Arzamasova (Blr) 1:58.03s, 2. Melissa Bishop (Can) 1:58.12, 3. Eunice Jepkoech Sum (Ken) 1:58.18.
4x100m: 1. Jamaica (Veronica Campbell-Brown, Natasha Morrison, Elaine Thompson, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce) 41.07s, 2. USA 41.68, 3. Trinidad & Tobago 42.03.
High jump: 1. Mariya Kuchina (Rus) 2.01m, 2. Blanka Vlasic (Cro) 2.01, 3. Anna Chicherova (Rus) 2.01. — Agencies
