Bolt ends season with victory, Ethiopian breaks world record

Usain Bolt after winning the 200m

Usain Bolt wins again

BRUSSELS(AFP) – Usain Bolt signed off another season where he dominated men’s sprinting with victory in the 100m in the season-ending Diamond League meet in Brussels on Friday.

The 27-year-old Jamaican arrived in the Belgian capital fresh from winning treble gold at last month’s world championships in Moscow, a feat that took his world golden medal haul to record-equalling eight.

His seventh outing over the 100m this season, with the sole blot on his copybook a loss by one-hundredth of a second to American Justin Gatlin in Rome, posed no problems.

Bolt blasted home in 9.80sec as four others led by American Michael Rodgers clocked sub-10sec times in front of a raucous sell-out crowd at the Roi Baudouin stadium in the Belgian capital.

Usain Bolt wins again
Usain Bolt wins again

Gatlin, whose return to form after a four-year doping ban was further confirmed when he finished second to Bolt in Moscow, could only come in fourth after Jamaica’s Nesta Carter.

“I promised a good race and, well, this was quite a good race!” beamed Bolt. “I felt much better than in Zurich (last week when he won in 9.90).

“That was also due to the crowd. They were amazing this evening and gave me energy.

“This was close to the ‘Usain Bolt fashion’, not only because this was the last race of the season but also because of the crowd.”

Bolt said he would now take a break until the end of October, doing nothing more than an odd jog and playing some football with his friends.

“The first goal for next season is to stay injury free,” he said. “My doctor warns me that I have to take care of my back because I’m getting older.”

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Jamaican Warren Weir, who won silver behind Bolt in Moscow, won the 200m in 19.87sec from fast-charging teammate Nickel Ashmeade (19.93), American Walter Dix taking third in 20.12 but winning the fashion contest with his striking camouflage outfit.

There was more Jamaican delight in the women’s 100m when world champion Sally-Ann Fraser-Pryce blasted out to victory in a meet record of 10.72sec.

Mohammed Aman: breaks 800m world  record
Mohammed Aman: breaks 800m world record
Arguably the performance of the night, however, came from Ethiopian Mohammed Aman, who lit up the 800m, clocking a world lead of 1min 42.37sec, only eight runners having ever gone faster.

Aman, who claimed gold at the Moscow worlds, delivered a run worthy of injured Kenyan world record holder David Rudisha, magnificently paced by Dutchman Bram Som through 600m.

Other world champions to win their events included France’s Teddy Tamgho and Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen in the men and women’s triple jump, Croatian Sandra Perkovic (discus), Trinidad’s Jehue Gordon (400m hurdles), Abeba Aregawi (1500m) and Milcah Chemos (3000m steeplechase).

For Chemos, it crowned an amazing run of success that has seen her win four successive Diamond Races, victors over the course of hte 14-meet series receiving a diamond trophy, a cash prize of $40,000, and a wild card for the next world championships (under certain conditions).

“I feel proud to have won the Diamond Race for the fourth time in it’s four years of existence,” the Kenyan said.

Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie later matched Chemos’ feat of four successive Diamond wins after the world silver medallist claimed the pole vault in a meet record of 5.96m.

Briton Martyn Rooney was on hand in the final race, the 400m, to ruin home hopes of a victory, beating Jonathan Borlee into second in a photo-finish.

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