Julien Alfred delivered a commanding performance to win the women’s Diamond League 100-meter title for the second straight year at the Letzigrund Stadium in Switzerland.
The 24-year-old Saint Lucian sprint queen and Olympic champion stormed across the finish line in 10.76 seconds to claim gold and became just the fourth woman to win back-to-back Diamond League 100m titles, behind American Carmelita Jeter (2010, 2011) and Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (2012, 2013) and Elaine Thompson-Herah (2016 and 2017).
Jamaica’s Tia Clayton grabbed silver at 10.84 seconds and Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith claimed bronze at 10.94 seconds.
With the World Championships in Tokyo right around the corner, Alfred said she still believes she can improve on her performance.
“I feel like there is more work to be done,” she said. “It is my first race back in five weeks, so it is like one step forward to me. I am not thinking about the time. It was about putting up the first and the second part. Now, I am working on little things before Tokyo.”
Meanwhile, American Noah Lyles pipped Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo in the 200-meter race at the Diamond League final to claim gold.
Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start but got past him in the last 100 meters to overhaul the Botswanan sprinter to the line by inches.
Lyles, the Olympic 100-meter champion and reigning world champion in both the 100 and 200 meters, clocked 19.74 seconds with Tebogo being just 0.02 seconds behind.
It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes.
“Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on the list. That’s pretty cool, I’m not going to lie.”
Trinidad & Tobago’s Keshorn Walcott secured a third-place finish in the men’s javelin throw with an impressive 84.95m, just about two metres less than his season’s best of 86.30m.
This puts Walcott top of the men’s javelin throw standings with 24 points, just one point ahead of Germany’s Julian Weber, then followed by Grenada’s Anderson Peters on 19 points.
Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake failed to win back-to-back Diamond League titles, as he finished third in the men’s 100 metres in 9.99 seconds, behind American Christian Coleman (9.97) and South Africa’s Akani Simbine (9.98).
While Jamaica’s Andrenette Knight finished third in the women’s 400 metre hurdles in 53.76 seconds, winner Femke Bol set a new meet record of 52.18 seconds, and Slovakia’s Emma Zapletalova ran a national record 53.18 seconds for second place.
