Athletics: Montgomery in best form as Greene fails again
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Your support makes all the difference.Tim Montgomery beat his more-fancied fellow American, Maurice Greene, to win the 100 metres for the second Golden League meeting in a row last night, running a season's best time of 9.91 seconds.
Greene, the Olympic and world champions, finished sixth with a lacklustre 10.11sec, behind Portugal's Francis Obikwelu and the Commonwealth Games champion, Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis, who were tied for second in 10.01. Another American, Jon Drummond, was fourth in 10.04 and Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis, competing in his first Golden League meeting since limping out of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester last month, fifth in 10.08.
Britain's Dwain Chambers, who has beaten Greene four times this season, did not compete at the sixth of the season's seven Golden League meetings, because of flu.
A late surge saved the reputation of Marion Jones, the Olympic gold medallist racing over 100m for a second successive week against Zhanna Pintusevich-Block. The Ukrainian, who surprisingly beat the American to the world title a year ago, looked to have the race sewn up in the last 10 metres but a last-gasp dip for the line gave Jones victory in 10.88sec.
The Commonwealth 5,000 metres champion, Sammy Kipketer, stepped up in distance to claim a thrilling victory in the 10,000m. Kipketer, 20, produced the quickest time of the year, winning in 26min 49.38sec – comfortably a personal best and fifth on the world all-time list. He held off Ethiopia's Assefa Mezegebu and Kenya's Richard Limo at the end.
Felix Sanchez, last year's 400m hurdles world champion, trailed by a metre coming into the final straight in his speciality event. One of only four athletes who have kept unbeaten records in this season's Golden League meetings, the man from the Dominican Republic celebrated his birthday in brilliant style, clawing back the deficit to win in 47.99sec, beating the European champion, Stéphane Diagana and Joey Woody.
Gabriela Szabo lost over 3,000m in a photo finish to decide that Berhane Adere was the winner, the Ethiopian running a season's best of 8min 26.14sec to hold off the Romanian's late rush for the line.
Britain's Jo Pavey finished strongly in fourth place, cutting her personal best by over five seconds to 8:31.27. "I didn't start too fast but stayed in close contact with the leaders all the way," Pavey said. "We don't have a lot of occasions to run a fast 3000m so I'm very pleased with my PB today."
Just as he did a week ago at Crystal Palace, the US champion Walter Davis produced a last-round winning leap to take the triple jump honours with 17.40m. He snatched victory from the Swede Christian Olsson, who had taken the lead in the fifth round with his best clearance of the night (17.33m).
Phillips Idowu proved to be the best Briton with 17.23m while Jonathan Edwards had a night he will want to forget, managing only seventh with 16.75m.
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