Paris, July 5 (IANS) Two-time Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has gone top in the Diamond Race rankings after storming to a clear victory in the women’s 100 metres here at the Paris meeting.
The 28-year-old Jamaican, who is not defending her world title in 200 metres in Beijing but focuses on 100 metres this year, on Saturday clocked 10.74 seconds. With this victory, she outdated the season’s previous world best of 10.79 seconds that she and English Gardner of the US both claimed last month, reports Xinhua.
Fraser-Pryce’s title-winning time is 0.06 seconds faster than the second-placed Nigerian Blessing Okagbare-Ighoteguonor, whose 10.80 seconds also bettered the previous meeting record of 10.88, made by legendary American Marion Jones in Paris 17 years ago.
Gardner with a fastest reaction in Saturday’s sprint, finished a distant third at 10.97 to rank sixth on the Diamond Race table.
“When you have good runners there, you always run fast. That is for me the motivation. We had excellent field today,” said Fraser-Pryce after the race.
“I have room to improve, in my technique, in the start,” added the fastest woman in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, who claimed a treble victory at the Moscow worlds in 2013 by winning 100 metres, 200 metres and 4×100 metres relay.
“I’m not satisfied with my starting reaction could have been better, in the overall execution of my race,” she said.
The Jamaican, who also took a 200 metres silver medal at the 2012 London Games, said she’d be back to training in her Italian base in Lignano.