{"id":1941,"date":"2019-05-30T22:10:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T22:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/stockholm-asher-smith-beats-the-chill-and-a-loaded-field\/"},"modified":"2019-05-30T22:10:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T22:10:47","slug":"stockholm-asher-smith-beats-the-chill-and-a-loaded-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/stockholm-asher-smith-beats-the-chill-and-a-loaded-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Stockholm: Asher-Smith Beats the Chill, And a Loaded Field"},"content":{"rendered":"
On an evening of cold temperatures and high winds, Asher-Smith clocked a world-leading 22.18 (+1.3m\/s) to win the women\u2019s 200m, handing defeats to world champion Dafne Schippers and Olympic champion Elaine Thompson in the process.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old got off to a flying start and ate up the stagger on her chief rivals in the lanes outside her on the turn, then powered further clear down the home straight to come home a wide-margin winner over Thompson (22.66) and Schippers (22.78).<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cMy aim was to come, win and run my own race which is very important in a race of that calibre,\u201d said Asher-Smith. \u201cI didn’t expect to run that kind of time as it is quite cold.\u201d<\/div>\n
Warholm was no less impressive in the men\u2019s 400m hurdles, the reigning world champion starting his outdoor season with a stunning display of one-lap hurdling to come home a long way clear of an international field and hit the line in 47.85.<\/div>\n
Warholm predicted yesterday that he would go like a \u201csky-rocket\u201d from the outset and that he would \u201cprobably die\u201d, and while he was good to his word on the former statement, the latter fear was never realised. He powered to the line a distant winner ahead of TJ Holmes of USA (49.25) and Thomas Barr of Ireland (50.28).<\/div>\n
\u201cI felt like I went out hard and managed to take 13 steps until hurdle nine which is really good in these conditions so maybe this is the year I will go 13 all the way,\u201d said Warholm.<\/div>\n
\u201cI had no problems with the cold or wind but I won in London (at the 2017 World Championships) in the rain and I have to learn to run in all conditions. It is an outdoor sport so whether it is cold or warm I have to run.\u201d<\/div>\n
DOMINANT RUN FOR NORMAN<\/b><\/div>\n
Elsewhere in the sprints, Michael Norman lived up to his favourite\u2019s billing with a commanding display to win the men\u2019s 400m, though with strong winds and cold weather buffeting the runners his time, unsurprisingly, was nothing for the Californian to write home about.<\/div>\n
Norman tracked training partner Rai Benjamin into the home straight then unleashed his trademark flying finish, powering clear over the final 50 metres to hit the line in 44.53. Benjamin held on for second in 45.13 with fellow US athlete Michael Cherry third in 46.30.<\/div>\n
\u201cToday was challenging, both mentally and physically, and there’s a lot of things I need to work on,\u201d said Norman. \u201cI’m not particularly satisfied with my race. But it\u2019s a long way to Worlds just yet. I’ll continue working hard with my coach, and we’ll see where that gets me.\u201d<\/div>\n
HARRISON IMPRESSES<\/b><\/div>\n
Kendra Harrison again stamped her authority on the women\u2019s 100m hurdles with a commanding victory, the world record holder putting together a clean, crisp display to take victory with ease in 12.52.<\/div>\n
\u201cI have raced in a lot colder conditions so I just had to come out here and focus on my lane and get the job done which I did,\u201d said Harrison. \u201cYou can’t control the weather so you just deal with it.<\/div>\n
\u201cI didn’t get out as well as I wanted but I finished the way that I wanted to so I plan on putting the whole race together by the time [the US] trials comes around. Right now me and my coach aren’t worrying too much about the times.\u201d<\/div>\n
Her closest rival was fellow US athlete Sharika Nelvis who clocked 12.69, while Nigeria\u2019s Tobi Amusan took third with 12.85.<\/div>\n
Aaron Brown continued his fine start to the year with his second straight victory in the IAAF Diamond League, backing up his win in Doha with victory in the men\u2019s 200m here in 20.06 (+1.0m\/s).<\/div>\n
\u201cI know I\u00b4m one of the best starters in the world in the 200m because of my 100m background so I made sure I put some distance on them at the beginning and then tried to hang on,\u201d said Brown. \u201cI\u00b4m on a pretty good run right now, but I\u00b4ve been on the road for a month so I\u00b4m ready to go home and get back into training. \u201d<\/div>\n
World champion Ramil Guliyev could only finish a distant second in 20.40, the Turk later explaining he was struggling with illness, while Jereem Richards came home third in 20.45.<\/div>\n
In the non-Diamond League sprint events, Britain\u2019s Rabah Yousif claimed victory in the men\u2019s 400m in 46.67, Dutch sprinter Churandy Martina took the men\u2019s 100m in 10.37 while Canada\u2019s Crystal Emmanuel claimed the women\u2019s 100m in 11.37. Norway\u2019s Amalie Iuel took the women\u2019s 400m hurdles in 57.02.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Cathal Dennehy for the IAAF and the IAAF Diamond League<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a night that was anything but conducive to fast times, Britain\u2019s Dina Asher-Smith and...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-1941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1941"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}