De Grasse runs Olympic 100m standard and season's best for 3rd at Paavo Nurmi Games
Rogers takes women's hammer throw, while wheelchair racer Smeenk 2nd in 400m
Andre De Grasse fell short of his third victory of the outdoor season but did run a season-best 10.00 seconds to match the entry standard for the Paris Olympics on Tuesday at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku, Finland.
He is the 28th athlete to qualify by standard in the distance. Before Tuesday, De Grasse was 32nd among the top 56 for Olympic selection, based on world rankings points.
Brendon Rodney (24th) of Brampton, Ont., also matched the 10.00 standard last July 28 at the Canadian track and field championships in Langley, B.C. Toronto's Aaron Brown, who is relay teammates with De Grasse and Rodney, is 35th.
Tuesday's time is De Grasse's fastest since his 9.89 personal-best performance at the 2021 Diamond League Final, but he hasn't run under 10 seconds in 20 races since.
He went 10.05 on June 16, 2022 at the Bislett Games Diamond League event in Oslo, Norway while his best this year entering Tuesday was 10.10 when he captured the 100 and 200 at 63rd Ostrava Golden Spike meet on May 28 in the Czech Republic.
The Markham, Ont., sprinter qualified fifth for Tuesday's eight-man final in 10.15 about 65 minutes earlier at Paavo Nurmi Stadium.
WATCH | De Grasse posts season's best over 100m in Turku:
Reigning Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs, De Grasse's training partner together at the Tumbleweed Track Club in Jacksonville, Fla., won Tuesday in 9.92, a meet record. It is also the fifth fastest time this season, and his second victory in Turku since 2020.
Jacobs, who was born in the United States but represents Italy, was the lone runner to run under 10 seconds in the heats, going 9.99 to beat De Grasse and Canada's Jerome Blake (10.25) who ran a 10.17 SB in the final for fifth place.
Prior to Tuesday, the 29-year-old Jacobs had dipped under 10 seconds just once since his Tokyo Games triumph in 2021. His time in Tuesday's final was the third-fastest of his career.
"Before today I was a bit worried that I hadn't run under 10 seconds yet [this season] but it's part of the game and now I have done it twice," Jacobs said.
"In the heats I had a really good start, the last part was average. In the final it was the other way around, so now we need to put the pieces together."
The season's leading time is 9.79 by Ferdinand Omanyala on Saturday at Kenya's Olympic trials.
De Grasse defeated Jacobs in their first two matchups in the 100 this season — at the East Coast Relays in Jacksonville on April 27 and in Ostrava.
Also at Tuesday's World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meet, Camryn Rogers of Richmond, B.C., had her lowest toss of the outdoor hammer throw season but pulled out her third victory in four competitions.
The reigning world champion's throw of 73.36 metres topped the field of eight, with Finland's Silja Kosonen second (71.67) and Denmark's Katrine Koch Jacobsen third (70.57).
On May 25, Rogers set a Diamond League record with a 77.66 heave at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore.
She achieved the 74.00 entry standard for this summer's Paris Olympics the day after the July 1, 2023 qualifying window opened with a winning throw of 76.95 at the Edmonton Athletics Invitational.
WATCH | Rogers tosses 73.36m to capture women's hammer throw in Finland:
Newman clears 4.61 in women's pole vault
Alysha Newman of London, Ont., turned in her best pole vault appearance since suffering a serious right ankle injury on Feb. 29.
She cleared 4.61 metres for an outdoor best this season and third place behind Nina Kennedy of Australia (4.80 SB) and Norway's Lene Retzius, who went 4.61 but had one fewer missed attempt than Newman, who won in Turku in 2019. Kennedy, who was victorious three years later in Finland, beat Finnish athlete Wilma Murto's meet record of 4.75 on Tuesday.
Newman competed after a cyst on one of her ovaries ruptured and caused her to pass out during breakfast Tuesday.
The 29-year-old has been working her way back slowly from a Grade 2 sprain suffered following a training session the day before the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow.
She returned to competition May 26 and was second (4.30) at the Bob Vigars Classic at Alumni Stadium in London, Ont. She didn't record a clearance a week later at the Johnny Loaring Classic in Windsor, Ont., before going 4.30 in Guelph, Ont., and 4.55 in Edmonton over the past two weeks.
On Feb. 22, Newman cleared a winning 4.83 at the All-Star Perche in Clermont-Ferrand, France to improve her national mark. It was the fourth time in nine competitions this season she has jumped 4.70 or higher. She had qualified for the Paris Olympics at nationals last summer by matching the 4.73 entry standard.
WATCH | Full event replay — Paavo Nurmi Games from Turku, Finland:
Wheelchair racer Smeenk 3rd in 100m
In wheelchair racing, Austin Smeenk of Oakville, Ont., faced a tough challenge from Leo Pekka-Tahti of Finland, who won the men's 100 and 400.
Tahti reached the finish in the 100 in 14.40 seconds while Smeenk was third in 15.67. Fellow Canadians Isaiah Christopher (15.76) and Nandini Sharma (17.46) were fourth and eighth, respectively.
On June 7, Smeenk crossed the finish line in a world record time of 48.38 to win the men's T34 400 at the World Para Athletics Grand Prix in Nottwil, Switzerland.
He was second in Tuesday's race in 50.06, trailing only Tahti, who clocked 48.26. But Smeenk's world mark is safe as Tahti competes as a T54 athlete, which includes people with spinal cord injuries who have normal hand and arm function and no leg function.
Athletes in the T34 classification like Smeenk also compete in wheelchairs. He was born with spastic paraplegia, a hereditary disease that causes progressive stiffness and contraction in the lower limbs.
Christopher was third (50.90) in the 400 and Sharma seventh (57.00).
Smeenk established himself as a top medal contender for the Paris Paralympics in August with a silver performance in the T34 100 at worlds last year while placing fourth in the 800. He also set Canadian records in the 100, 400 and 800.
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With files from Reuters
