Julien Alfred smashed a 31-year-old meeting record to win the women’s 100m. The Olympic champion was in top form as she blitzed to victory in 10.75 (+0.9m/s) to erase Irina Privalova’s 1994 best of 10.90 from the record books.
Her training partner, former world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith finished second in her slipstream with 10.93 ahead of the Ivory Coast’s evergreen Marie-Josée Ta Lou-Smith in 11.00.
“After Oslo, I had to have a long chat with my coach and he went through everything with me for today’s race,” said Alfred who also won in Oslo with 10.89. “He reassured me that I am in great shape because I was doubting myself. But I am happy today with how the race went.”
Olympic champion Rai Benjamin got the better of rivals Karsten Warholm and Alison dos Santos in a thrilling men’s 400m hurdles, clocking a new world lead and meeting record of 46.54.
Norway’s Warholm was coming into the meeting full of momentum, having set a new world record over 300m hurdles three days earlier in Oslo. In his usual style, he attacked from the gun and led to the finishing straight. But this time, the tables were turned on Thursday as he was the one who began to falter as USA’s Benjamin took over.
Brazilian dos Santos also overtook Warholm as the world record holder faded. Benjamin stayed strong to the finish, clocking 46.54, bettering dos Santos’ meeting record by 0.26. Dos Santos was second in 46.68 with Warholm flagging, but placing third in 47.41.
“I think on Thursday I got a little too excited but I felt good today even though I was tired,” said Benjamin. “I did not run a good race strategically on Thursday so I knew I needed to fix that today.
“I had to stay patient and not panic and catch up on as much sleep as I can after a few 3 to 4 hour a night sleeps. The trip was a lot rougher than I thought it would be so I spent most of today sleeping and took it easy in my warm-up so it paid off.
“I felt confident coming in today as I know these guys, we will all push each other to do well out there. We are all competitors once we are out there as we all want to win. Our performances speak for themselves.”