Yomif Kejelcha offered another exciting glimpse of his star quality by cruising to victory in the boys’ 3000m final on the penultimate day of athletics action at the Youth Olympic Games in the Nanjing Olympic Sport Centre Stadium on Sunday (24).The tall, fluid-striding Ethiopian, who secured the world junior 5000m title last month, easily repelled a ferocious – and some might say foolhardy – early attack from Kenya’s Moses Koech to kick clear of the field with little more than three laps to go.The 17-year-old Kejelcha could then afford to serenely ease to a processional win in a time of 7:56.20 – the second-fastest time by a youth athlete this year – albeit nearly a full 20 seconds behind the staggering time of 7:36.28 he posted at the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava in June, which sits second on the senior 3000m world lists this year.His triumph brings to an end an impressive 13-month period in which the gifted Ethiopian has snared all three major age group global titles, a sequence kick-started by his 3000m gold medal at the 2013 IAAF World Youth Championships in Ukraine. In a furious battle for silver, Theirry Ndikumwenayo of Burundi pipped Koech by 0.28 in 8:05.05, but there is little doubt that Kejelcha is a special talent and his future development will be monitored with great anticipation.During the morning session, another African talent popped his head above the parapet to reveal a special running talent and then proceeded to entertain the crowd with his personal display of karate moves in the boys’ 1500m final.Glibert Soet laid waste to the opposition with a scintillating last-lap performance to stop the clock in a world-youth-leading time of 3:41.99. The 16-year-old Kenyan left the crowd with something else to remember him by, a hitherto unknown talent for mirroring martial arts moves.Lyles leaves family screamingThe pre-race favourites struck gold in the 200m A finals with US sprinter Noah Lyles securing a comfortable victory in the boys’ race and Natalliah Whyte ensuring Jamaican gold in the girls’ equivalent.On a cooler night in Nanjing, Lyles could not quite match his personal best of 20.71 from the heats but, running from lane seven, he proved too good for the rest, crossing the line for gold in 20.80.Chad Walker of Jamaica crossed the line second but was later disqualified for running out of his lane and Botswana’s Baboloki Thebe was awarded silver in 21.20.Lyles said of the USA’s first athletics gold medal in Nanjing: “Coming in with a big target on your back, there’s always pressure. But you can’t worry about it. You've just got to run your own race and do the best you can. My father, who coaches me, would be at home screaming with brothers going crazy in the house telling everybody just what I did.”White, who had placed seventh in the 200m final at last month’s World Junior Championships, said she was “overwhelmed” to take gold in 23.55, 0.39 clear of Ukraine’s Dzhois Koba.Koba’s silver in the morning session preceded a memorable evening for Ukraine who took two shock gold medals in the evening stanza. Hlib Piskunov produced the performance of his young life to defeat world youth leader and red-hot pre-event favourite Bence Halasz of Hungary in a dramatic boys’ hammer final.Halasz, who hurled the hammer a monster 87.17m for a world youth best in May and was the owner of the 14 longest youth throws in the world this year leading into the final, could only summon a best of 81.90m as Piskunov advanced his personal best by more than two-and-half metres to take gold with 82.65m.His compatriot Yuliya Levchenko vowed “to party” after earning a stunning success in the girls’ high jump by bettering her pre-final best of1.83m on three occasions to edge France’s Nawal Meniker, with her second-time clearance at 1.89m securing the gold medal.“A personal best in the final was more than I dreamed of. I have so many emotions, I can’t understand it,” was Levchenko’s response to a dramatic and unexpected gold medal. &nbsp;&nbsp;Just a month after securing the world junior shot put title, Pole Konrad Bukowiecki proved unassailable in the under-18 age group as he hurled his implement out to a world-youth-leading mark of 23.17m to ease to gold. As a further measure of the magnitude of his performance, it was the fifth best performance by a youth in history and added to his 2013 world youth title.Double Japanese goldJapan also enjoyed a memorable night inside the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre Stadium with a welcome double dose of endurance success. Nozomi Takamatsu proved far too strong for the rest while setting a personal best of 9:01.58 to triumph in the girls’ 3000m from Germany’s Alina Reh, who took the silver in 9:05.07.Earlier in the session, Minoru Onogawa celebrated Japanese gold after circling 25 laps of the track in a lifetime best of 42:03:54 to take gold in the boys’ 10,000m race walk, more than seven seconds clear of Russia’s Vladislav Saraikin.It could not have been any tighter in the final of the girls’ hammer as home thrower Xu Xinying pulled out a final effort of 68.35m to exactly match the best performance of Australia’s Alex Hulley.However, much to the delight of the home fans, the Chinese athlete was awarded the gold by virtue of a superior second-best effort.As predicted, world youth leader and world youth silver medallist Alena Bugakova was far too good for the rest of the field in the girl’s shot, winning with 18.95m. Her fellow Russian Anatoly Ryapolov, the world youth long jump champion, defied wet conditions in the morning session to secure the boys’ long jump crown with 7.54m.Steve Landells for the IAAF

Yomif Kejelcha offered another exciting glimpse of his star quality by cruising to victory in the boys’ 3000m final on the penultimate day of athletics action at the Youth Olympic Games in the Nanjing Olympic Sport Centre Stadium on Sunday (24).

Kejelcha completes golden hat trick with 3000m win at Youth Olympic Games

Turkey’s Emel Dereli has dominated the girls’ Shot Put this year and last month threw a fine 19.99m, so it was no surprise to see the 17-year-old capture the World youth title in impressive fashion.Following a 19.18m effort to lead the qualifying round on Thursday (11), she threw a superb 20.14m personal best and championship record in the first round of the final to clinch her nation’s first medal in this event during the eight editions of these championships. Competing with a 3kg implement for the first time at the World Youth Championships, and thus her qualifying throw becoming a championship record before her mammoth effort in the final, Dereli was followed at a distance by Russia’s Alena Bugakova and the USA’s Ashlie Blake, who took the silver and bronze medals with 18.60m and 17.57m respectively. Dereli had so much distance to spare over her compatriots that, in addition to her third round effort of 18.96m which would have also won the gold medal, she could afford the luxury of registering three fouls and declined to take her sixth and final attempt. Bugakova, still 16 and with a lifetime best of 19.17m set last month after improving by more than four metres this season, went over 18 metres three times and finished clear of her US rival, who was just 40cm adrift of her personal best.Blake’s bronze medal represents the USA’s first medal in this event since current US champion and record-holder Michelle Carter took the 2001 title in Debrecen.

Turkey’s Dereli wins girls' Shot with World youth best

Turkey’s Dereli wins girls' Shot with championship record

Turkey’s Emel Dereli has dominated the girls’ Shot Put this year and last month threw a fine 19.99m, so it was no surprise to see the 17-year-old capture the World youth title in impressive fashion.

Two national records and a team of 38 athletes for the IAAF World Youth Championships was the outcome of the Russian Youth Trials that finished on Sunday (23) in Chelyabinsk. On the first day of competition, 16-year-old shot putter Alena Bugakova set a national record and the second-best performance in the world by a youth athlete with the 3kg Shot. Bugakova added almost two metres to her previous outdoor PB of 17.56m set last month, throwing 19.17m.All six of her attempts were farther than her previous best, and the young Russian managed to throw over 19m twice – 19.17m in the second round and 19.02m with her final throw.&nbsp; It ranks her second in the world this year behind Turkey’s Emel Dereli, who has thrown 19.90m this year – just 62cm shy of Corrie de Bruin’s World youth best. Dereli and Bugakova are the only shot putters to break 19 metres this year.As the 3kg implement only last year became the official implement for youth athletes, Bugakova has confirmed her position as the national record-holder.She has been doing the Shot Put only for a couple of years. She started her career as a swimmer and even became a champion of her native Tver region, which is in the central part of Russia. Shortly after she was spotted at a school lesson by athletics coach Nadezhda Berezutskaya and moved to Moscow to start doing athletics.Bugakova currently combines Shot Put with Discus, where she also won the national youth title with a PB of 47.19m. However, Bugakova has been selected just for the Shot in Donetsk and will focus on the Discus later at the European Youth Olympic festival in Utrecht. Another Russian youth best performance was set by Anatoliy Ryapolov in the Long Jump. The 16-year-old produced an impressive series – 7.78m, 7.90m, 7.37m, 7.81m, x, 7.80m. The wind during the competition was strong and changing, and as a result only three of Ryapolov’s jumps were wind-legal – the first, the second and the last one.Ryapolov, born in Armavir, improved a very old national record – 7.76 m, set by Igor Lozinskiy back in 1996. Ryapolov’s 7.90m jump is also now the second best jump in the world this year by a youth athlete with only China’s Wang Jianan ahead of him with 7.92m.Another new name to watch is the second-place finisher, Maxim Yunyakin, who produced the third-best mark in the world this season with 7.63m (1.2m/s).Tolokonnikov is ‘the new Borzakovskiy’The impressive sprint double by Kristina Sivkova came as no surprise. Having won the 100m at the recent junior trials (11.70), the 16-year-old prodigy won the 200 (24.80) and continued her winning streak in the 100m (11.70). Earlier in the month Sivkova set a 200m of 23.80 at the Moscow Challenge meeting after being called in as a last-minute replacement.Though Sivkova now clearly dominates the national scene, in Donetsk she will compete only in the 100m. The coaches decided to save her energy for the competition in Utrecht where Sivkova is set to run both sprint distances and the relay.Elsewhere on the track, Konstantin Tolokonnikov produced a great 800m run. His time of 1:49.13 now ranks him third in the world and first among Europeans this year. Due to his energetic style and speed, Tolokonnikov has already earned the nickname “the second Borzakovskiy”, after the Olympic 2004 champion.What makes Tolokonnikov’s result even more notable is that he was running in extreme heat – 34°C in the shade – and practically without any real competition as the second-place finisher, Konstantin Kholmogorov, finished almost two seconds behind in 1:51.08.In the girl's 100m Hurdles, Yulia Sokolova was an impressive winner in 13.87, despite a strong headwind of 2.7mps.To see a video of Yulia Sokolova inviting you watch and follow the 2013 IAAF World Youth Championships&nbsp;<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAqR_QT9zEY&feature=youtu.be">click here</a>. At the end of the championships, 38 athletes (22 boys and 16 girls) out of more than 700 participants managed to achieve qualifying standards for the World Youth Championships.For the first time in years, the team for Donetsk contains more boys than girls. Although Russian athletes still generally perform better on the women’s side, the situation on the senior level is starting to change with the emergence of athletes like Sergey Shubenkov and Alexander Menkov. It seems that trend has now continued at the youth level too.Natalia Maryanchik for IAAF

Records broken at Russian Youth Championships

Two national records and a team of 38 athletes for the IAAF World Youth Championships was the outcome of the Russian Youth Trials that finished on Sunday (23) in Chelyabinsk. 