Coleman to skip Diamond League meet in Shanghai

NORTH CAROLINA: American Christian Coleman, the 60m indoor world record holder, will miss Saturday’s high-profile 100m at the Diamond League meeting in Shanghai due to “precautionary reasons”, his coach said.

Organisers of the meeting had said on Sunday that both world 100m silver medallist Coleman and Jamaican double Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson were “dealing with physical issues that prevent them from participating”. “Coleman is fine,” Tim Hall said via a text message on Monday.

“I just felt the timing is not appropriate for him to compete right now ... precautionary reasons.”

Neither his coach nor agent, in a telephone interview, would elaborate on Coleman’s status.

The race would have been the 22-year-old’s first individual outdoor competition after a superb indoor season in which he set the 60m world record and won the world championship.

Even without Coleman, who ran the fastest 100m of 2017, the Shanghai race is expected to be an early season highlight.

US world 100m champion Justin Gatlin, Canadian triple Olympic medallist Andre De Grasse and China’s 60m silver medallist Su Bingtian are all entered in the race, along with surprise world 200m gold medallist Ramil Guliyev of Turkey and 2017 British Diamond League 100m winner CJ Ujah. — Reuters