Bolt sets the world alight again

Jamaica's Usain Bolt was again the highlight of a thrilling year of athletics, claiming triple gold and a double sprint record at the World Athletics Championships in August.

Bolt, who had in 2008 set the Beijing Olympics alight with a treble gold showing in record time, again lived up to top billing in Berlin.

The 21-year-old, whose razzmatazz and light-heartedness have offered a much-needed breath of fresh air to the world of athletics, shattered his own world records for the 100m and 200m, clocking 9.58 and 19.19sec respectively, while Jamaica again won the 4x100m relay to complete his hat-trick of gold medals.

Bolt "may now be the most famous sportsman in the world, not just in athletics", concluded Lamine Diack, head of world athletics' ruling body the International Athletics Associations Federation (IAAF).

Despite Bolt's haul, it was the United States which again headed the medals table with 10 gold, six silver and six bronze medals for a total haul of 22 at the championships, which featured 1,984 athletes from 201 territories.

Jamaica were in second on 13 (7, 4, 2), Kenya third on 11 (4, 5, 2) and Russia in fourth with 13 (4, 3, 6).

Bolt's individual sprint double was emulated by Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, who reinforced his credentials as arguably the best distance runner ever when he won gold in both the 5 000 and 10 000m, repeating his Beijing Games double.

His victory in the 10 000m was the fourth in succession and matched the record set by former mentor Haile Gebrselassie.

Controversy was provided by South African teenager Caster Semenya, who thrashed the field to claim gold in the women's 800m event.

Semenya's rapid speed gains, however, prompted questions over her gender. Leaked test results said Semenya was a hermaphrodite, sparking anger from the South African public and government.

Semenya was allowed to keep her gold medal, and the results of her controversial gender testing were not made public.

Arguably the biggest shock of the world championships was the failure of Russian Yelena Isinbayeva to win a third successive pole vault crown.

After losing a competition for the first time in six years just before the championships, she amazingly failed to land one of her three attempts.

But she rebounded at the Zurich leg of the Golden League shortly after the worlds, setting a new world record of 5.06 metres to better her previous best mark of 5.05m set at the Beijing Olympics.

Doping again reared its ugly head, the highest profile case being that of Bahrain's Moroccan-born middle distance runner Rashid Ramzi, who was stripped of his Beijing 1500m gold after testing positive for a new form of the banned blood booster EPO-CERA.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) also decided not to re-award the women's 100m gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Games, which was stripped from drug cheat Marion Jones two years ago.

In line with IOC practice, controversial Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who finished second behind Jones in Sydney, would have been expected to receive the gold medal.

Instead, the record books will show no gold in the flagship women's sprint at Sydney but two silvers, with the IOC unwilling to upgrade Thanou who was in subsequent years immersed in controversy over doping related issues. Ethiopia and Kenya shared the spoils at the World Cross-Country Championships in Amman in March as African runners swept the medals board.

Gebre-egziabher Gebremariam made up for the absence of compatriot and defending champion Kenenisa Bekele to win the senior men's event.

With Ethiopia's defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba also absent in the women's race, Florence Kiplagat claimed the first victory for Kenya since 1994.

Kenya topped Ethiopia in the overall team podiums for both events, Eritrea taking third in the men's and Portugal in the women's.

Bolt's crowning as the new sprint king has also synched comfortably with the IAAF's launch of the Diamond League, a 14-meet series that will replace the six-leg Golden League and associated Grand Prix events.

It means that Bolt will race head-to-head against his biggest rivals, something that agents have traditionally liked to keep to a minimum during the Golden League.

Bolt, for instance, did not race once against American Tyson Gay - the treble world gold medallist from the Osaka 2007 worlds who claimed a silver behind the Jamaican in Berlin - in this season's Golden League.

The IAAF, however, will not allow too many head-to-head encounters in a bid to preserve the uniqueness of showdowns at the World Championships and the Olympics.

The Diamond League will also extend the number of disciplines from the 10 in the current Golden League to 32 across the whole series of meetings.

by Luke Phillips, AFP