Tori Bowie and Justin Gatlin ran eye-popping sprints at the Monaco Diamond League meet Friday, when hoped-for world records in two men’s events did not come to fruition.
Bowie, back from a leg injury at the U.S. Championships on June 27, ran a personal-best 10.80 seconds to beat a field that included Olympic and World 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and the last two Olympic 200m champions, Allyson Felix and Veronica Campbell-Brown.
Bowie has only been primarily a sprinter since March, when she switched her focus off the long jump. Her personal best before this season was 11.14. She is now the fastest woman in the world this year and 17th-fastest of all time after winning Friday’s race with a .8m/s tailwaind.
Campbell-Brown was second to Bowie in 10.96. Felix and Fraser-Pryce were fifth and sixth, respectively, in 11.01.
Gatlin, the fastest 100m man in the world this year, made a rare appearance in a 200m and made the most of it. He beat a field that included Tyson Gay in 19.68 seconds, smashing his personal best of 19.86 from 2002.
It’s the fastest time in the world this year and would have finished second to Usain Bolt at last year’s World Championships, .02 behind. Bolt’s win came with zero wind. Gatlin ran into a .5 m/s headwind.
Gay was fourth in 20.22 on Friday.
The men’s 1500m was the most anticipated event of the meet, with World champion Asbel Kiprop expected to take a run at the world record of 3:26.
It was not to be, as countryman Silas Kiplagat passed Kiprop on the final straightaway to win in 3:27.64. Kiprop was eyeing Hicham El Guerrouj‘s world record from 1998. Instead, he fell from fourth to fifth fastest all time with Kiplagat taking his place behind El Guerrouj, Bernard Lagat and Noureddine Morceli.
There were no world-record attempts in the men’s high jump, won by Ukraine World champion Bohdan Bondarenko, who cleared 2.40m. Bondarenko and Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim have made attempts to better the 21-year-old world record of 2.45m this year.
Olympic champion and world record holder David Rudisha finished fifth in a scintillating 800m. Botswana Olympic silver medalist Nijel Amos won in 1:42.45, shaving .89 off the fastest time of the year. It was the second-fastest time in the world since the epic London Olympic final.
France’s Pascal Martinot-Lagarde became the first man to break 13 seconds in the 110m hurdles since Aries Merritt set the world record on Sept. 7, 2012. The Frenchman won in a national record 12.95. Merritt, in his injury-delayed Diamond League season debut, was seventh in 13.47.
World champion LaShawn Merritt pulled away to win the 400m in 44.3 against a field that did not include rival and Olympic champion Kirani James.
Jamaican world leader Kaliese Spencer won the 400m hurdles in 54.09. Czech World champion Zuzana Hejnova was seventh in 55.86 in her first major appearance of 2014 after breaking a toe in January.
Molly Huddle broke her American record in the 5000m, finishing in 14:42.64. Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba won with the fastest time in the world this year, 14:28.88.
American Ajee’ Wilson won the women’s 800m in 1:57.67, the fastest time in the world this year.
Brazil’s Fabiana Murer won her third straight Diamond League pole vault with a 4.76m clearance, topping Olympic champion Jenn Suhr.
The Diamond League resumes in Stockholm on Aug. 21, after the Commonwealth Games.