OLYMPICS/ Athletes
Robles dominates hurdles in IAAF Stuttgart final
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-24 15:42
BERLIN -- Cuban hurdler Dayron Robles on Sunday dominated the men's 110m hurdles at the Stuttgart IAAF World Athletics final with 12.92 seconds, a new championship, national, continental record.
Dayron Robles of Cuba (L) runs next to Terrence Trammell of the US to win in the men's 110 metres hurdles event at the IAAF 5th World Athletics Final 2007 in Stuttgart, September 23, 2007. [Reuters] |
Despite the absence of reigning World and Olympic champion Liu Xiang who set an exceptional competition record 12.93 on this same track last year, the line-up included all the ingredients for a sparkling finale.
The 2003 and 2005 World champions, Allen Johnson and Ladji Doucoure, respectively lined up in 1 and 2. Osaka World Championships silver and bronze medallists Terrence Trammell and David Payne were in 3 and 5 respectively as the US pair of Ryan Wilson and Anwar Moore and Osaka finalist Sergey Demidyuk had the outside lanes.
Yet it was in lane four that all the action was to take place as Dayron Robles stormed out of the blocks and ran unchallenged to the finish and equal the fastest time of the year 12.92.
It was a massive 8 hundredths of a second improvement on his previous fastest time which he set on this same track a year ago.
"This is fantastic. This is amazing," the 20-year-old Cuban hurdler said after the race.
"I'm not surprised by my performance because I knew I was in really, really good shape," he explained.
Robles is now equal with the likes of Olympic champions Roger Kingdom and Allen Johnson as the fourth fastest ever sprint hurdler. Only World record holder Liu (twice), Colin Jackson and Dominique Arnold have ever run faster.
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