Duels, not records, and stars delight worlds

By John Bagratuni Sep 2, 2007, 16:56 GMT

Osaka, Japan - Tyson Gay's 100 metres win in a hyped duel with Asafa Powell set the trend at the world championships which could have been the dawning of a new era in athletics.

Rivalries and dramatic competition appears to be the new trend, with records not a necessity any more to make the sport more attractive or the stars even bigger.

'I am happy that the best events were the fierce duels. It shows that we don't need world records,' said Helmut Digel, a German member of the ruling body IAAF's council.

Steve Ovett, Britain's 800m Olympic champion from 1980 who had a fierce rivalry with Sebastian Coe, agreed: 'There is time for the records at the meets, the real duels are here at the world championships.'

And there were duels galore in the heat and humidity in Osaka where 1,990 athletes from 200 countries competed for 47 titles.

The sprint showdown in the first season meeting between Gay and Powell stood out, with Gay storming to gold in 9.85 seconds as the world record holder Powell chocked again at a big event and only got bronze behind Derrick Atkins.

'We have a great rivalry coming up,' said Gay, who got a pep-talk from his mom to erase self-doubts. These were gone for good when he completed the sprint triple with 200m and 4x100m wins.

The men's long jump stood for thrilling competition even though there was no world record like 1991 in Tokyo where Mike Powell soared 8.95m.

Italy's Andrew Howe celebrated what he thought was victory with a final personal best leap of 8.47m with some chest-butting antics. But Panama's Irving Saladino reclaimed the lead on the final jump of the competition, a personal best 8.57, for the final bragging rights.

'I wanted to win but I knew he would come up with some crazy jumps,' said Howe.

Veronica Campbell of Jamaica beat American holder Lauryn Williams by two thousandths of a second in a women's 100m photo finish while Blanka Vlasic needed a high jump of 2.05m to send Croatia into ecstasy.

Even 400m hero Jeremy Wariner didn't have a walk in the park. The Olympic champion ran the fifth time in history with 43.45 seconds for back-to-back titles, but fellow-American LaShawn Merritt was not too far away with 43.96.

Wariner's winning margin of 0.51 was in fact smaller than the 0.53 seconds Allyson Felix recorded in the 200m with her emphatic win in 22.81 seconds, the fastest time of the Millennium and biggest margin since the 1948 Olympics.

Big wins like Felix's were rather the exception, with Kenenisa Bekele needing a final kick to get a third 10,000m title and even glamour girl Yelena Isinbayeva's pole vault margin dramatically reduced from 41 centimetres in 2005 to five in Osaka.

China's Liu Xiang beat American Terrence Trammell by a mere four hundreths with 12.95 seconds to get 110m hurdles worlds gold at last after Olympic gold 2004 and the world record 2006.

So tight was the race that Liu, running in the outside lane, admitted to the biggest sin in sprints: 'I couldn't bare it any longer and had to look over.'

Carolina Kluft was given a fight to number two in the all-time list with a personal best 7,032 points by Ukraine's Lyudmila Blonska, while Czech Roman Sebrle got his first world title at last in the decathlon with the smallest margin ever of 32 points over Jamaican Maurice Smith.

Bernard Lagat got a gold at last after several minor medals for Kenya, coming out of a ban after becoming a US citizen to end a 99-year winning drought over 1,500m for his adopted country.

He then made himself immortal when he won the 5,000m as well for such a first double in worlds history. While Lagat and Gay were the only two athletes to get double individual titles, Felix added 4x100m and 4x400m relay gold to the 200m.

Lagat, Wariner, Felix and Gay accounted for 10 gold medals as the US again dominated the medal table with 14 gold, four silver and eight bronze from Kenya, who got a worlds-best ever 5-3-5.

Hosts Japan also got a medal, a bronze on the final day from marathon runner Raiko Tosa. The marathons and walks were marred by the intense heat which saw several athletes collapse.

Until Sunday, none of the doping tests conducted was positive, although one 'adverse finding' requiring further examination was announced from a total 1,060 tests done around the championships.

The doping was there earlier, though, with Blonska having served a two-year ban and Britain's Christine Ohuruogu winning the 400m right after being banned for three missed tests.

IAAF president Lamine Diack said the absence of a world record meant neither that 'the world championship wasn't a worthy competition' nor that 'the fight against doping is over.'

Diack named the competition 'phenomenal,' but at the same time said that changes in the competition format, presentation and promotion were required for the future.

'The world championships are our biggest event,' said Diack.

Possible changes such a reducing the duration of currently nine won't be implemented by the next worlds 2009 in Berlin, but rather from 2011 in Daegu or 2013 in Moscow onwards.

But first come the Olympics next year in Beijing where the world champions are the men to be beaten and their rivals ready for revenge.