Kim Collins advances to the men's 100m final in Daegu (© Getty Images)
Daegu, Korea - At 35 years and 144 days old, Kim Collins has become the oldest ever 100m finalist at a World Championships.
The World champion of 2003 from St Kitts and Nevis appears to have rediscovered that old seam of form here as he moved joyfully through to the final with victory in 10.08, the fourth fastest of the round, finishing clear of the second-placed Jamaican, Nesta Carter, who clocked 10.16.
Olympic silver medallist Richard Thompson was the highest ranked casualty of the 100 metres semi-finals, as he finished third in a heat won with the ease and panache the world has come to expect of the defending champion, Usain Bolt, in a time of 10.05. With Christophe Lemaitre of France taking the second automatic qualifying place in 10.11, the Trinidad and Tobago athlete’s third place time of 10.20 was not enough to give him one of the two fastest loser’s slots for the final.
But if Thompson was highest ranked man to make an exit – his 9.85 has him as fourth fastest in this year’s world listings – he did not have the distinction of being the highest profile sprinter failing to progress. That unhappy description fitted Dwain Chambers, who was disqualified for false-starting in a first heat won by Bolt’s training partner Yohan Blake in a season’s best of 9.95 – the fastest time of the round, with Walter Dix of the United States equalling Bolt’s time in second place.
The 33-year-old World Indoor champion, whose doping ban in 2003 received huge publicity, made his World Championship debut at the age of 21 in 1999, when he took bronze in 9.97 – a time he has never bettered – to become the then youngest ever 100m medallist at the event.
If that was his high point in these Championships, this was surely his low point, notwithstanding the disqualification from the 2003 final. He had rocked ever so faintly on his blocks.
As he walked resignedly from the start where the remaining seven men were re-addressing themselves to the task in hand, an official tried to usher him away. But as the dead-eyed sprinter simply walked to the back wall and slumped despondently down, he didn’t have the heart to continue.
Bolt, who had clowned as usual beforehand, playing up the crowd and brushing down his hair as the television camera held him in its gaze, got down to serious business at the start and middle part of the race before coasting the last 30 metres.
The two fastest loser places went to Jimmy Vicaut of France, third behind Blake in 10.10, and Daniel Bailey of Antigua, one place behind him in 10.14.
Mike Rowbottom for the IAAF
