Christian Coleman sprinted to take something at the Diamond League final in Brussels. He got it.
The world’s best sprinter since Usain Bolt‘s retirement ran the world’s fastest 100m in three years, 9.79 seconds into a headwind on Friday night. Adjusting for wind and altitude, it may have been the best sprint ever outside of the Bolt era.
“Mine,” Coleman repeated in a head-shaking, chest-thumping, finger-pointing celebration.
Coleman, a Rio Olympic 4x100m prelim runner, capped a roller-coaster season following his breakout 2017, when he ran a 40-yard dash one tenth faster than the NFL Combine record and beat Bolt to a 100m silver medal at the world championships behind Justin Gatlin.
He returned in the winter indoor season to three times run under the 60m world record. Coleman then struggled with hamstring problems in the spring and lost his first two 100m races.
Coleman took June off from meets to heal up. When he returned, Coleman won a pair of 100m races in July and August, but each time the runner-up clocked the same time to the hundredth. Coleman also developed a tendency to start strong, with the rest of the field gaining on him in the last half.
Not so Friday.
Coleman stormed out of the blocks as usual, but he kept enough of a lead that he eased crossing the finish ahead of countryman Ronnie Baker, who had the world’s fastest time of 2018 (9.87). Coleman won by .14, with Baker losing nearly a tenth freezing in the starting blocks.
“I came into the whole week with a chip on my shoulder that people had stopped talking about me,” Coleman said, according to Reuters. “They forgot everything I did last year and at the indoors. I mean you can’t blame them.”
Full Brussels results are here.
The outdoor track and field season concludes in earnest with the IAAF Continental Cup next weekend, streaming live on NBC Sports Gold and airing on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA.
In other events Friday, Ethiopian Selemon Barega ran the sixth-fastest 5000m in history, a 12:43.02.
American revelation Shelby Houlihan lost a 1500m for the first time this season, unable to catch Brit Laura Muir in the final straightaway of the 1500m. Muir clocked 3:58.49, edging Houlihan by .45.
Houlihan, 11th at the Olympics and 13th at the 2017 Worlds in the 5000m, this year won two Diamond League 1500m races, plus swept the 1500m and 5000m at the U.S. Championships and broke the American 5000m record.
Olympic champion Brianna McNeal edged world-record holder Kendra Harrison in the 100m hurdles, 12.61 to 12.63, to cut Harrison’s lead in their 2018 head-to-head to 3-2.
Double Olympic gold medalist Christian Taylor was beaten by Cuban-born Portuguese rival Pedro Pablo Pichardo in the triple jump. Pichardo is set to end Taylor’s three-year reign as the year-end world No. 1. Taylor chose the non-global championship year to focus on trying to break 45 seconds in the 400m.
Mondo Duplantis, the recent Louisiana high school graduate pole vaulter for Sweden, surprisingly bowed out at 5.83 meters. Two weeks ago, Duplantis cleared 6.05 meters at the European Championships. Russian Timur Morgonov won Friday by clearing 5.93 meters.
Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser won the 400m in 49.33, topping world champion Phyllis Francis and U.S. champion Shakim Wimbley. The field lacked Olympic gold and silver medalists Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Allyson Felix.
Miller-Uibo owns the fastest time in the world of 2018 (48.97). Felix has scarcely competed in this non-global championship season.
Kenyans went one-two-three in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, led by world-record holder Beatrice Chepkoech in 8:55.10. World champion Emma Coburn of the U.S. was fourth in 9:05.61.
Croatian Sandra Perković finished outside the top two of a discus competition for the first time since 2014. The Olympic and world champion was bettered by Cuban Yaime Perez (65 meters) and Brazilian Andressa de Morais (64.65).
Olympic triple jump champion Caterine Ibargüen of Colombia added a Diamond League season title in the long jump, though the final lacked Olympic champion Tianna Bartoletta and world champion Brittney Reese.
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