MONACO, CMC – Sprint darling Julien Alfred of St Lucia warmed up for the 2024 Olympic Games with a confident win, and fellow medal hopeful Thea La Fond of Dominica returned a season’s best in her pet event at the ninth World Athletics Diamond League meet for the year yesterday.
Alfred, 23, won the women’s 100 metres dash, and world indoor champion La Fond, 30, finished runner-up in the women’s triple jump at the Louis II Stadium in Monaco, the tiny, but glamorous principality on the French Riviera.
In the penultimate Diamond League stop before the Olympic Games, which starts on July 26 in the French capital of Paris, Alfred clocked 10.85 seconds and was slightly off her national record of 10.78 set last month in Kingston last month.
She beat Tamari Davis of the United States and Dina Asher-Smith of Great Britain – both clocked at 10.99 for second and third respectively.
“I really love this Monaco crowd and the introduction of the event with the lights,” Alfred said. “I will get back to practice and just focus for my preparations for the Paris.”
La Fond, the only triple jumper to clear 15 metres this year during the indoor season, flirted with the distance again, but her best attempt was 14.87m in the third round of the competition, where the top four finishers all posted season’s best measurements.
World bronze medallist Leyanis Pérez Hernández of Cuba took the top spot with her fifth-round leap of 14.96, after she managed 14.95 in the third round.
Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk of Ukraine returned from injury to leap 14.81 in the second round and take third place, while Shanieka Ricketts of Jamaica hit 14.67 in the third round for fourth and compatriot Ackelia Ricketts cleared 14.30 in the fourth round to take fifth.
Elsewhere, Malik James King of Jamaica ran under 48 seconds for the second time in the past three weeks when he clocked 47.73 seconds in the men’s 400m hurdles – but he still finished behind the three outstanding 400 hurdlers of the era.
The three fastest of all time – reigning Olympic champion and world record holder Karsten Warholm of Norway, reigning world champion Alison Dos Santos of Brazil, and Olympic silver medallist Rai Benjamin of the United States – gave a taste of things to come at the Paris Olympics in another thrilling clash.
In their first battle since the Diamond League final last September in the American city of Eugene in the state of Orgeon, the trio all went out hard and seemed evenly matched off the final bend.
But as they stormed down the home straight in a line across lanes five, six and seven, it was Warholm and then Benjamin that showed the greatest finishing strength.
Benjamin eventually came off the final hurdle quickest to win the clash of titans in 46.67 and maintain his win streak from Eugene with Warholm six hundredths-of-a-second behind, and Dos Santos coming third in 47.18.
Between them, the trio of Warholm, Benjamin and Dos Santos have now achieved the 17 fastest times in men’s 400 hurdles history.
Andrew Hudson of Jamaica ran 20.43 and he also finished fourth in the men’s 200, which Letsile Tebogo of Botswana won comfortably with a time of 19.87 to continue his streak of sub-20 clockings, with Alexander Ogando of the Dominican Republic coming second in 20.02 and Tarsis Orogot of Uganda taking third in 20.32 seconds.
The final World Athletics Diamond League meet before the Paris Olympics takes place on Saturday, July 20 at the London Stadium in England.
