Runners Marie-Josee Ta Lou, Noah Lyles, Femke Bol shine before 50,000 fans in London
Alysha Newman, Canada's lone athlete at Diamond League event, 9th in pole vault
Marie-Josee Ta Lou showed she will be a force to be reckoned with at the age of 34 at next month's World Athletics Championships as she claimed another Diamond League 100 metres win in a scorching 10.75 seconds at the London Athletics Meet on Sunday.
In the final Diamond League meeting before the Aug. 19-27 worlds, August in Budapest, Hungary, Ta Lou, Noah Lyles (men's 200), Femke Bol (women's 400 hurdles) and Jackline Chepkoech (women's 3,000 steeplechase) all produced stellar performances.
They were roared on by the biggest Diamond League crowd anywhere for five years as around 50,000 fans created a fabulous atmosphere as the event returned to London's Olympic Stadium for the first time since 2019.
For about nine seconds they thought they were going to see local favourite Dina Asher-Smith triumph in the women's 100 but she was overhauled to finish second in 10.85 seconds.
Flying past her was Ivory Coast's Ta Lou to claim her third Diamond League win of the season, with slow-starting Jamaican Shericka Jackson third in 10.94. American champion Sha'Carri Richardson withdrew from the race after feeling a tight hamstring in warmup.
WATCH | Ta Lou quiets crowd, passes local favourite Asher-Smith for 100m win:
"I hope to go back and train even harder for Budapest because I know it will take more to win there," Ta Lou said. "I know my finish is strong, but my start could be better, and I need to improve it to make sure I can achieve my goal of winning gold."
World champion Lyles also surged through late to win a stacked 200 as the American's 19.47-second run improved his own fastest time in the world this year by 2-10ths.
WATCH | Lyles lowers season world-leading mark to 19.47 seconds over 200m:
Hughes sets British mark in men's 200m
Botswana's Letsile Tebogo was second in an African record 19.50 while Zharnel Hughes, who took the 30-year old British 100 record last month, completed a notable double by also erasing John Regis's long-standing 200 mark with 19.73 in third.
Dutchwoman Bol also showed she is in the hottest form when she blasted to a European record of 51.45 seconds in the 400 hurdles
Only American world record holder (50.68) Sydney McLaughlin has ever gone faster and Bol, second behind McLaughlin in last year's world championship and third behind her at the Tokyo Olympics, will be hoping to finally bag global gold in Budapest.
"Amazing. I've been wanting to run a 51 ever since Tokyo, I had a feeling I could do it, but I still can't believe I've done it," Bol said.
Her compatriot Sifan Hassan, who won the London Marathon in April, looked short of race sharpness as Ethiopian world champion Gudaf Tsegay swept past her old rival on the home straight to win the 5,000 in a personal-best 14 minutes 12.29 seconds.
Newman fails to clear 4.51 metres
In other action, pole vaulter Alysha Newman was the lone Canadian competing at Sunday's event.
The 29-year-old had a good start to her competition, clearing 4.36 metres, before missing each of her three attempts at 4.51 to finish ninth in a field of 10 athletes.
Newman was fresh off efforts of 4.63 (her first win of the season) and 4.55 in Germany and Switzerland, respectively, over the past week. She also cleared 4.41 on June in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Prior to that performance, the London, Ont., native had a third no-height result in the previous four events in June.
Newman set the Canadian record of 4.82 in France at the 2019 Meeting de Paris but hasn't seemed the same on the runway since suffering a concussion in April 2021.
Wilma Murto of Finland and American Katie Moon each cleared 4.80 on Sunday but the former prevailed since she needed only two tries while Moon required all three.
Slovakia's Tina Sutej cleared 4.71 for third place.
WATCH | Full coverage of Sunday's London Athletics Meet:
Van Niekerk continues surge in 400m
In the 3,000 steeplechase Kenyan Jackline Chepkoech also produced a brilliant personal best of 8:57.35, making her the only athlete to go under nine minutes this year.
South Africa's world record-holder and 2016 Olympic champion Wayde van Niekerk continued his climb back towards podium potential by winning the 400 in 44.36 seconds, just edging American Bryce Deadmon (44.40), on the track where he won the second of his world titles in 2017.
"Physically I'm ticking all the right boxes, so hopefully I can just constantly improve and grow. Then, when I get to Budapest I can compete for medals," he said.
There was initial disappointment for the huge crowd when world and Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson withdrew from the final 800 event with illness, but compatriot Jemma Reekie stepped up to the plate in brilliant style to surge through for an unexpected victory.
"I was struggling down that home straight, but I was in London and I thought 'the Brit's got to win this'," said Reekie," who finished an agonizing fourth at the 2020 Olympics. "That crowd drove me down that home straight."
With files from CBC Sports
