ZURICH // Usain Bolt returned to the track after the Olympics to win the 100 metres in 9.83 secs at the Weltklasse meet. After setting such high standads during the Beijing Games, he was merely excellent on a night when his performance was upstaged by Pamela Jelimo of Kenya, 18, who clocked 1:54.01 in the women's 800m, the fastest time in more than two decades to become the third fastest in history at the distance.
Jelimo and Croatian high jumper Blanka Vlasic stayed in contention for the US$1 million (Dh3.6m) Golden League jackpot after both extended their unbeaten run to five at Europe's elite summer meetings. The American sprinters Jeremy Wariner and LoLo Jones got a measure of compensation for their Olympic defeats by winning the men's 400 and women's 100 hurdles. Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia followed up his 5,000-10,000 gold medal double by running the fastest 5,000 in the world this year.
Bolt was the undoubted main attraction for a sold-out crowd of 26,000 at a meet that likes to call itself "the Olympics in one night". Yet the Jamaican, 22, was never likely to threaten the world record time of 9.69secs he set in his astonishing run to Olympic gold. He was slowest of the nine starters to react to the gun, and it was fully 20 metres before he pulled his huge frame into the lead. He drew clear of Walter Dix of the United States by the 60-metre mark but there was no trademark showboating as he eased smoothly to the line in 9.83secs.
The Beijing bronze medalist Dix was second in 9.99secs. "You can't really compare it to the Olympics," said Bolt. "The Olympics bring so much pressure. It was easy here. "As I'm starting to get a cold I was not able to think about any faster time. My coach told me that I should make sure to end the season healthy." Bolt and his Jamaica team pulled out of a commitment to run the meet-closing 4x100 relay. Running minutes before Bolt, Jelimo stepped up from her gold medal effort in Beijing by almost a second to run away from the field in the women's 800. Her time of 1:54.01 was a new African and world junior record and left her 0.73 seconds outside the world record set by Czech Jarmila Kratochvilova in 1983.
* AP
