LIZ TOILS IN DALES
WARREN: DAN THE MAN FOR WORLD TITLE BID
Today’s schedule (UK times) 6.05pm Men’s 200m heats
6.40pm Women’s Pole Vault Final
7.20pm Women’s 100m semis
9.20pm Women’s 100m final WHEN it came to the biggest race of his life Christian Coleman’s whereabouts were not in any doubt.
The USA sprinter had put a black mark against his name by three times in a year not being where he said he would be when the drugs testers came to call.
But on a sultry night in Qatar there was no question that he would be found on the top step of the podium.
In the first global major of the post-Usain Bolt era, the 23- year- old stormed to the world 100metres title inside the Khalifa Stadium.
He even made sure everyone knew exactly where to expect him – out front – as the only competitor to qualify from the semi-finals in a sub-10sec time.
Drawn in lane three, the 5ft9in rocket maintained that form, leading from start to finish before crossing the line and letting out a primal scream.
His winning time of 9.76secs is the sixth quickest of all time and put clear daylight between him and Justin Gatlin (9.89) LIZZIE DEIGNAN missed out on a fairytale victory as Holland’s Annemiek Van Vleuten won in the women’s elite race at the UCI Road World Championship.
Van Vleuten rode alone for a little over 100km of the 149km route through the Yorkshire Dales and and Andre de Grasse (9.90). Zharnel Hughes (below), sixth in 10.03, had harboured hopes of becoming the first British sprinter since Darren Campbell in 2003 to win an individual world d medal.
That opportunity now passes to Dina
Asher- Smith, who qua l i f ied third quickest for today’s ’s women’s 100m final behind Shelly- Ann Fraser- Pryce an Marie-Josee Ta Lou.
Asher-Smith, the Diamond League champion over 100m, came to the Arabian peninsula kept the chasing pack at bay. Deignan led the peloton through her home town of Otley, but later paid the price for hard work done leading the chase.
The 2015 world champion ultimately finished in the pack, crossing the line 31st, five minutes 20 seconds down.
It was a first world roadrace title for 36-year-old Van Vleuten, who was with more than one expert backing her for a sprint double. But that assumed Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce would run as she did when beaten by AsherSmith in Brussels earlier th this month.
Instead, the threetime world champion scorched to the fastest 100m heat in w world championship hi h i stor y, clocking 10.80secs slowing down. Asher-Smith, who was just 12 when mum-of-one FraserPryce won the first of her two Olympic titles, was no slouch, winning her heat in 10.96. But world time trial champion in 2017 and 2018.
She said: “It was not planned, I wanted to go hard on the climb as it was good for our team but I had a gap and my coach just said to continue.
“I felt so many emotions on the line. I’ve been world time-trial champion, but road champion you get to wear the jersey so much more.” the 23-year-old will know she has her work cut out to get the better of the evergreen Jamaican today.
Hours earlier the Worlds had got off to a hugely controversial start with a midnight women’s marathon run in 30- degree heat and 70 per cent humidity.
Decathlon world champion Kevin Mayer blasted the decision to stage the Worlds in Doha after a brutal race in which 28 of the 60 competitors dropped out and 30 ended up at the medical centre.
Mayer said: “They didn’t put the athletes first, they’ve mostly put them in jeopardy.”