Tokyo Olympics | Thompson-Herah defends 100m title in style

Defending champion Elaine Thompson-Herah stole the thunder from Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and emerged as the fastest woman at the Tokyo Olympics as Jamaica swept the 100m medals on Saturday.

A gold would have made the 34-year-old Fraser-Pryce the first woman in history to win three Olympic 100m titles but Thompson-Herah broke away from the World champion at the halfway mark and won comfortably in 10.61s, the second fastest time in history which broke Florence Griffith Joyner’s 33-year-old Olympic record (10.62). Fraser-Pryce (10.74) and Shericka Jackson (10.76) took silver and bronze.

Meanwhile World champion USA, disqualified for a faulty exchange in the 4x400m mixed relay heats, was reinstated into the final by a jury decision on Saturday but it could only take bronze with Poland pulling off a shocking victory in 3:09.87s.

Later, Sweden celebrated a wonderful day in men’s discus throw with World champion Daniel Stahl (68.90m) and Simon Pettersson (67.39) taking gold and silver.

Earlier, discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur became the first Indian in athletics to enter a final in Tokyo after finishing an impressive second in the qualification round with 64m. But former Asian Games champion Seema Antil-Punia, who was competing in her fourth Olympics, failed to make the cut with just 60.57m. Seema had qualified for Tokyo with 63.72m at last month’s inter-Nationals. Only two achieved the automatic qualification standard of 64m.

Kamalpreet is now only the 11th Indian ever and the second woman discus thrower to qualify for an Olympic final.

The 25-year-old from Punjab, who has a personal best of 66.59m, opened her qualification series with 60.29m and then produced 63.97 and 64m, to finish behind American Valarie Allman (66.42).

Long jumper M. Sreeshankar, who appeared to have lost much of his spring in the last few weeks, came up with a weak 7.69m in the qualification round and missed the final.

The 22-year-old, who bettered his national record with 8.26m in March, had a disappointing series (7.69, 7.51 and 7.43) and finished 13th in his group and 25th overall.