Twenty-two year-old University of Technology (UTech) student Elaine Thompson ran a personal best (PB) and world leading 10.92secs (1.0m/s) to win the women’s 100m at the Jamaica UTech Classic in Kingston last night. Behind her were team mates Natasha Morrison, second in 11.17, and Christania Williams, third in 11.18.
Thompson’s new PB beats the previous world leading 10.97 by Trinidad’s Michelle-Lee Ahye in Florida last weekend. It is the seventh best performance by a Jamaican woman and has made her the 11th Jamaican woman to go below 11 seconds. Her compatriots who have run faster than she has over the distance are veterans Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Sherone Simpson, Kerron Stewart, Juliet Cuthbert, and Merlene Ottey.
Just under two weeks ago, Thompson lowered her PB to 11.01 (-1.1m/s) from 11.17 to take the Jamaica Inter Collegiate women’s 100m. Her time then broke the meet’s 10-year-old mark of 11.33 set by Simpson.
Later in the Meet, Usain Bolt ran his first 200m race in almost two years and won in 20.20secs (-2.0m/s). Having taken off most of the 2014 season, Bolt opened the 2015 season with 400m races earlier but had not competed in a short sprint event until yesterday. His time tied for the third best in the word this year, with Canadian Andre DeGrasse, just behind Bolt’s countryman Julian Forte’s 20.19. Botswana’s Pako Seribe’s 20.17 is the leading time.
Nesta Carter was second to Bolt in 20.60 and Rusheen McDonald, third in 20.68.
Meanwhile, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce held off her former teammate Sherone Simpson by a nose to win the women’s 200m in 22.96secs. It was Fraser-Pryce’s first sprint race of the season, and she was pressed all the way to the finish line by Simpson, who came up short by one-hundredth of a second in 22.97. Fraser-Pryce then told her facebook fans: “Tonight was a great taste of the competition, and I welcome it!”