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Gatlin, Pichardo Shining at IAAF Rome Athletics Meeting

Xinhua, June 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Justin Gatlin of the United States and Pedro Pablo Pichardo of Cuba took the spotlight in the IAAF Diamond League meeting at the Olympic Stadium in Rome on Thursday night.

Gatlin, who clocked 9.74 seconds for the yearly best last month in Doha, sprinted 9.75 seconds in the men' s 100 meters final, the sixth fastest time in history. Jimmy Vicaut of France and Michael Rogers of the United States posted no challenge in distance second and third places in 9.98 seconds.

The 34-year-old Gatlin, 2004 Olympics 100m champion, said after the triumph:" I have had a couple of very good races, couple of 100s and 200s and I feel confident running times around 9.70s. This will help me to keep the shape to Beijing. I do not think of beating Usain Bolt now because the championships is not tomorrow.. I think 9.60 should be possible in summer."

Pichardo, who jumed 18.08 meters last week, smashed the Golden Gala meeting record of 17.60 m with a 17.96m outing, easily winning the men' s triple jump.

"It is my first time here on this stadium and I felt the track a bit too hard," said Pichardo. "I was aiming the jump over 18 meters and I got very close to it," said the Cuban.

Renaud Lavillenie of France, the men' s pole vault world record holder of 6.16 meters, failed to clear 6.01 meters but claimed the title with a jump of 5.91 meters. "I felt a bit tired, it was a very long competition and after all the travelling from Eugene, jetlag, it was very difficult. I plan to start on the European Cup now, but we planned only 6 more starts till Beijing world championships in August this year," said the winner.

Ruth Beitia of Spain, however, claimed a season best in the women' s high jump at 2.00 meters, beating the world big star Blanka Vlasic of Croatia into second place. Vlasic, who cleared 2 meters more than 100 times with a personal best of 2.08m, jumped over 1.97m.

Four other season best marks were set up tonight and all came from the track events.

Yomif Kejelcha, amazingly still only 17, became the first runner to run faster than 13 minutes in the 5000m this year when the Ethiopian beat a strong field to win in 12:58.39.

Aman Mohammed of Ethiopia clocked 1 minute and 43.56 seconds in the men' s 800 meters. Jenny Simpson of the United States coasted home in 3 minutes and 59.31 seconds to win the women' s 1500 meters. Kiyeng Hyvin of Kenya took the victory of the women' s 3000m steeplechase in 9 minutes 15.08 seconds.

Among the highlights in the evening, the men' s shot put was won by German David Storl with a toss of 21.46 meters while Russian Darya Klishina took the women' s long jump title with a 6.89m leap.

There were a total of 16 Diamond League events featured Thursday night. Endi