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Devers and Gardener win sprint golds
Gail Devers wins gold in the women's 60 metres sprint at the 10th World Indoor Athletics Championships in Budapest.
- Indo-Asian News Service
- Updated: February 25, 2007 09:05 AM IST
Read Time:2 min
Budapest:
Gail Devers completed the first leg of a remarkable sprint double at the 10th World Indoor Athletics Championships in Budapest on Friday, taking gold in the women's 60 metres sprint. The 37 year-old American defends her hurdles title on Sunday. Britain's Jason Gardener also struck gold in the men's event, as did Ukraine's Vita Pavlysh in the women's shot and Naide Gomes of Portugal in the women's Pentathlon. The first day of the 10th World Indoor Championships saw four gold medals decided, the first of which came in the women's Shot. In the absence of defending champion Irina Korzhenenko, the competition came down to a duel between another Russian, Svetlana Krivelyova and Ukraine's Vita Pavlysh. Pavlysh, the pre-event favourite, sealed victory with a fourth round effort of 20.49 metres and beat the two-time former champion by a comfortable 59 centimetres. Cuba's Yumileidi Cumba took the bronze medal. The women's Pentathlon was also missing a big name in Sweden's Carolina Kluft, but Naide Gomes of Portugal was happy to take advantage and held off the challenge of another Ukrainian, Nataliya Dobrynska to become world champion by just 32 points with 4759, the best total in the world this year. The evening session brought the first of the glamour events to the track and 37-year-old Gail Devers was trying for a unique double in the sprint and the hurdles. The French pairing of Christine Arron and Muriel Hurtis were expected to provide the major threat, but when that failed to materialise, Devers romped home in a seasons best 7.08 seconds, ahead of Belgium's Kim Gevaert and Yuliya Nesterenko of Belorus. Devers defends her hurdles title on Sunday. The fastest man over the distance this year has been Britain's Jason Gardner and the sprinter nicknamed the 'Bath Bullet' after his home town was looking for his first world title after two bronze medals at these championships. Shawn Crawford of the United States stood in his way but another blistering start from the 28-year-old Briton gave him an advantage that Crawford could not run down. Crawford was timed at three hundredths of a second behind Gardener's 6.49 seconds, with Yeoryios Theodormdis of Greece shaping up well for the Athens Olympics. (AP)Topics mentioned in this article
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