Bolt and Fraser-Pryce win on 200m debut

RAYMOND GRAHAM, STAR Writer

Despite the fastest male and female athletes in the world, Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce making appearances at Saturday's UTech Classic inside the National Stadium, it was the UTech duo of Elaine Thompson and Shericka Jackson who stole the show.

The pair had sizzling record runs in world-leading times in the 100m and 400m, respectively.

Thompson's breakout season continued as she propelled like a rocket from the starting blocks and was simply majestic, displaying raw speed to decimate the field in clocking an impressive 10.92. The Intercol champion erased Carrie Russell's 2013 record of 11.07 seconds. Her teammates Natasha Morrison (11.17) and Christania Williams (11.18) were second and third, respectively.

Thompson joined an elite group of Jamaicans to go sub-11 seconds and put her at number seven on the Jamaican all-time list in the 100m.

She soared to number one in the world so far, moving past Trinidad and Tobago's Michelle Lee Ahye, who clocked 10.97 at the Florida Relays last month.

Thompson was ecstatic: "I just cannot believe I ran so fast. I didn't expect this and when I heard the time announced I was in awe as I just came out to have a good run and this happened; this is great motivation for me going forward and I am hoping to be among the top two at the Senior Trials."

There was a blanket finish in the men's 100m where in-form Julian Forte and Kimarley Brown of UTech and Commonwealth Games champion, and Kemar Bailey-Cole of Racers were locked in a tight battle.

In the end, the camera decided the placing as Brown, who at one stage last year was the fastest Jamaican, pipped teammate Forte to win in 10.11 seconds to Forte's 10.12. Bailey Cole finished third in 10.14

Jackson, the fastest Jamaican over 200m this year, showed her class in the 400m. Running a very controlled race, she turned back the challenge of teammate Janieve Russell, clocking a world-leading 51.39. She erased the meet record of 52.08 seconds done by Bobby-Gaye Wilkins in 2009.

Russell ran a season's best 51.93, while the ever-dangerous Anastasia Le Roy of Sprint Tech ran courageously for third in 52.00.

Making her 200m debut, Fraser-Pryce had to pull out all the stops to deny former training partner, Sherone Simpson, now at Sprint Tech.

Fraser-Pryce, running in lane four, was off to a fast start, but had to call on her reserve as a determined and back-to-form Simpson caught her 10m from the line.

Fraser-Pryce prevailed by 100th of a second , winning in 22.96 to Simpson's 22.97 as 400m specialist Stephanie McPherson was third in 23.19.

Bolt, racing in his first 200m on local soil in two years, did enough to win in a record 20.20, in the process removing Yohan Blake's record of 20.33 seconds.

The MVP duo of Nesta Carter (20.60) and Rusheen McDonald (20.68) were second and third, respectively.