Dibaba, Gudzius, Berry World leads
CHORZOW (POL, Jun 8): Three World leads highlighted the 64th Kusocinski Memorial (EA Classic) in new environment of big and modern Slaski Stadium of Chorzow with some 20 000 spectators. World indoor 1500m and 3000m champion Genzebe Dibaba from Ethiopia stormed to a world-leading 3:56.68 in her first 1500m of the outdoor season winning by over eight seconds from teammate Axumawit Embaye (4:04.90) with Germany’s Diana Sujew third in (4:05.95). In the last event on the track, Kenya’s Ferguson Rotich edged out home favourite Adam Kszczot in the 800m, 1:45.70 to 1:46.12, but Justyna Swiety-Ersetic scored a huge win on home soil ahead of Allyson Felix in the 400m, 51.11 to 51.35. Other track highlights included Sergey Shubenkov winning his third 110m hurdles race in six days in 13.25 and Ewa Swoboda beating Tatjana Pinto in the 100m, 11.30 to 11.32. Just 24 hours after finishing second in Oslo, Ryan Crouser turned the tables on Tom Walsh, 22.27m to 21.63m, with Poland’s Michal Haratyk third in 21.58m. After victory in Turku on Tuesday, Wojciech Nowicki produced back-to-back wins over reigning world and European champion Pawel Fajdek in the hammer with a 80.63m PB in rounds three and four ahead of Fajdek (80.04m) and Olympic champion Dilshod Nazarov (78.18m). In the women’s hammer, Gwen Berry regained her US hammer record with her opening throw of 77.78 also WL (also 77.19m in round four) to move to fourth on the world all-time lists, defeating world record-holder Anita Wlodarczyk (75.52m) in the process. World discus champion Andrius Gudzius maintained his excellent form by improving his PB to 69.30 WL ahead of Iran’s Ehsan Hadadi (66.68m) with former global winners Robert Harting (65.13m) and Piotr Malachowski (64.10m) third and fourth respectively. Renaud Lavillenie cleared 5.91m in the pole vault before three attempts at 6.01m ahead of Pawel Wojciechowski (5.71m) and Piotr Lisek (5.51m), Canada’s Christabel Nettey went out to 6.88m in the long jump to defeat Brittney Reese by one centimetre and Japan’s Naoto Tobe cleared 2.30m in the high jump ahead of Maciej Grynienko who improved to 2.27m. American Paul Dedewo broke the 45-second barrier once again in the 400m, winning in 44.56 ahead of former world and Olympic medallist Luguelin Santos (44.75) with world indoor 4x400m champion Karol Zalewski third on home soil in a 45.15 PB (2nd best European 2018).
