Tyson Gay wins in 9.78 at the Aviva London Grand Prix - Samsung Diamond League (© Getty Images)
The heavens opened at the start of tonight’s Aviva London Grand Prix - Samsung Diamond League (13) but USA’s 2007 World 100m and 200m champion Tyson Gay defied the elements when it came to the final event of the meeting some three and half hours later, sizzling to a 9.78 sec (-0.4) world season lead.
Crystal Palace stadium was hit by a rain shower of monsoon proportions at 5.30pm local time as the women’s Discus Throwers were midway through their competition – won by Cuba’s Yarelis Barrios who thundered out a massive first round 65.62m – with the torrent so heavy that the men’s Pole Vault had to be temporarily suspended. Well, effectively the wet ended the competitions of Australia’s World and Olympic champion Steve Hooker and France’s world season and Diamond Race leader Renaud Lavillenie who both registered no mark at their opening heights of 5.51m. The runway was exceptionally slippery and in these extreme conditions these protagonists found themselves bravely upstaged by Poland’s Luhasz Michalski (5.71m).
The rain lasted for approximately 30minutes, transforming the stadium’s open tribunes on the top and bottom bends into a sea of umbrellas. An hour and 15 minutes after the rain ceased the men’s sprinters came onto their blocks for the 100m heats in exceptionally dank conditions (16C) and in that sort of cool weather none of the capacity crowd of 16,000 could have imagined they would be in for such a night of hot racing.
Gay was smoothly through to the final with 10.02 (-0.4m/s) as the winner of the first heat, and Walter Dix, who had taken a famous victory over Gay at 200m in Eugene last month, dominated the second race in 10.08 (-0.3). Jamaican Yohan Blake was slightly faster (10.07) as the runner-up behind Gay in the first dash.
>> Click here to read the full report on the Samsung Diamond League Website <<
To those of you who were wondering about the lateness of this report’s publication, we would like to express our disgust at the person who stole the lap top of our UK correspondent Matthew Brown, who was due to file for us this evening, from the athlete/media Mixed Zone during the end of the meeting. We offer our greatest and sincerest sympathy to Matthew who was busy coordinating the excellent flash quotes service for the organisers at the time the thief or thieves struck.
Chris Turner
IAAF Editorial Senior Manager
