Thursday, August 30, 2007

Susie keeps Lankan hopes alive

ATHLETICS: Wonder girl Susanthika Jayasinghe kept Sri Lanka's hopes alive as she stormed into the women's 200m final on day six of the 11th IAAF World Championship at the Nagai Stadium on Thursday night.

Running in the second women's 200m semi final, Jayasinghe clocked 22.66 seconds to finish third behind American Sanya Richards (22.50) and Jamaican Aleen Bailey (22.65).

Today her timing was 0.11 seconds slower than her feat in the first round and in the quarter finals - 22.55, her best 200m timing in seven years.

Yet, that was good enough for her to comfortably book a place in Friday's final. LaShantea Moore (22.73) finished behind Jayasinghe but the American too made it to the final as the first four in each semi final would make it to the last eight.

Defending champion Allyson Felix of USA returned a time of 22.21 seconds to win the first semi final which went on a relatively better pace. The assistance of the wind the sprinters had (+0.8 m/s) too contributed towards that while the second race in which Jayasinghe ran was against the wind (-0.4 m/s).

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