On one of the most anxiously awaited days in the history of track and field, Guyana’s athletes suffered another ‘stop-go’ as the world bore witness to the supreme track clash of the century.
It all unfurled yesterday – Day 2- at the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin where Jamaican sprint megastar Usain Bolt flashed to a sensational win and new world record against American superstar Tyson Gay. Earlier, Guyana’s Aliann Pompey bowed out at the semifinals of the Women’s 400m, while teammate Marian Burnett slugged through to her 800m semis today (7:30PM, Guyana time).
The story of the day, the ‘Gay-Bolt showdown with a Powell fringe’, finally satisfied the millions of anxiety minders who like kids waiting for Christmas morning, had their wish either answered or scurried. The crowd of 55,000, many with the new Bolt Archer’s Pose prop, in the Olympic Stadium roared at the end of one of the most anticipated races of all times.
Unlike the Beijing Olympics exactly a year ago, Bolt saved the celebration for after the finish line and showed that, yes, he can keep breaking his records too. He obliterated it, in fact. The Jamaican ran the marquee Men’s 100m in 9.58 seconds, turning his showdown against the American into a rout and putting to rest the questions that went unanswered last time he set the record (9.69s in Beijing) when Gay was absent. Gay, meanwhile, set the American record by finishing in 9.71s, a time that would have been a world record 12 months and one day ago. Bolt’s compatriot and former three-time record holder Asafa Powell took bronze in a season best (SB) 9.84s in a race that featured all but one runner from the Pan-American region, and half being Caribbean nationals.
Bolt won US$60,000 for winning the event and a further US$100,000 for breaking the world record.
On a day when the atmosphere in the stadium was absolutely electric and superb, the Guyanese bitter-sweet experience hit Pompey when the door closed in almost identical fashion to her last Olympic experience. But, not before the Guyanese record holder rewrote the national mark, speeding to a popping 50.71s which marginally missed a semis place.
Getting a got a tough lane-8, Pompey sensed her drive around the oval was all up to her experience and speed. Those were evident as she kept her rivals from making up the stagger until the homestretch. Here Pompey drifted from second to fifth, before driving back to overtake American Jessica Beard (51.20s), but finishing behind Jamaica’s world bronze medalist Novlene Williams (49.88s), African champion Amantle Montsho with 49.89s (SB) and 2003 world 200m champion Anastasiya Kapachinskaya (50.30s) of Russia.
She didn’t get one of the required top-2 positions for auto qualification from each of the three semis; but was in the running for one of the two overall provisional ones. Pompey’s wait was short lived, however, as the very next semis thwarted her chances. The day really started with Burnett joyously logging the last provisional qualification into Monday’s semis. She placed 5th in the third of six heats doing 2:03.89 to move into the original 24-runner semis. Burnett’s hair’s breath qualification came in the event’s fastest heat.
Running in, probably, the toughest qualifier, the Guyanese record holder stayed just behind the leading quartet for most of the race. Attempting to make a move at about 160m to go, Burnett ran out of real estate to answer the overdrive of her rivals. She settled for a spot better that three others in the race, and had to await the end of the heats to know her providence. Burnett’s 8-runner semis seems a tighter battle as she faces the likes of Olympic champion Pamela Jelimo of Kenya, world leader Caster Semeya of South Africa, world indoor silver medalist Tetiana Petlyuk of Ukraine and American champion Hazel Clark among others.
Though the experience was bitter sweet for the Guyanese, they are taking heart that they performed on the same stage on the day that track history bore a resemblance to the 1936 occurrence when Jesse Owens struck four gold medals in front of Adolf Hitler and his Aryan supremacy march.
From finals’ favorites and former medalists being knocked out to race walkers literally strolling the last decameters of their race, the day’s events weren’t without peripheral spectacles. The biggest calamity came when Kenya’s Janeth Jepkosgei suddenly fell onto the track in the 2nd of six heats in the two-lapper. Leading the 7-runner race shortly after the bell sounded, the defending champion went down after being clipped from the back by current world leader Caster Semenya of South Africa.
The 18-year old debutante (2:02.51) went on to win the heat leaving Jepkosgei to get up and chase the flock to finish in an abysmal 2:12.81, and literally out of the semis. It looked like a bit of naivety for the tall, sturdy Semenya. “I was trying to move from lane one and when I tried to move my legs she was coming back.” In distraught tones she told the media, “It’s really upsetting when someone falls like that. She (Jepkosgei) was supposed to go to the final. It’s not good at all.”
Later, the Kenyan team appealed the results and got Jepkosgei reinstated, adding her to the 24-runner pool, and for what could be a battle of the event’s top three targets – all Africans.
