Fraser emulates Bolt to add world crown to Olympic gold

BERLIN (AFP) - Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser won the women's 100 metres title here at the world championships on Monday in the joint third fastest time ever of 10.73 seconds. The 22-year-old Olympic champion - who thus emulates compatriot Usain Bolt after he added the men's world title to his Olympic gold - beat home teammate Kerron Stewart (10.75sec) while American champion Carmelita Jeter took bronze in a time of 10.90sec. Fraser joins Frenchwoman Christine Arron as the third fastest of all time behind the now disgraced Marion Jones, who set 10.70sec at the 1999 world championships in Seville, and the now deceased world record-holder Florence Griffith-Joyner, who set 10.49 in 1988 in Indianapolis. Fraser's feat comes less than a week after she lost her place in the team when, along with men's world bronze medalist Asafa Powell, they were ejected for not training at the official team training camp only to be reinstated later the same day. Fraser said that she had not lost her focus despite the falling out with the team chiefs prior to the championships. "I was not disturbed because of the problems before the world championships," she said. "As regards the race I left all the world behind me down there on the track." Fraser made no mistake given a second chance and she was much faster out of the blocks than Stewart, and the rest of the field. The 25-year-old Stewart had won all four Golden League meets this season but did suffer defeat to Fraser at one Grand Prix. Stewart fought hard to reel her back in but Fraser never let up till she hit the line. Stewart ran a personal best but had to settle for another silver, having finished joint second alongside Sherone Simpson in Beijing last year in a Jamaican clean sweep. "This is not what I wanted, but I gave everything I had," said Stewart. "My time will come." It was 29-year-old Jeter's second successive world bronze. The consolation for her and the Americans was that she prevented another Jamaican clean sweep. Defending champion and two-time Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell-Brown fought back valiantly from a poor start but all her class could not bridge the gap with Jeter and she finished fourth in 10.95. Jeter's US team-mate Lauryn Williams, the 2005 world champion and 2007 silver medalist, got better as the race progressed but, isolated out in lane eight, she had to be satisfied with fifth. The two Bahamas veterans, 33-year-old Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and Chandra Sturrup, who first competed in the Olympics in 1996 and turns 37 next month, filled sixth and seventh respectively while Aleen Bailey, a member of the 2004 Olympic gold winning 4x100m relay team, was always trailing and rounded up the field.

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