Williams mines gold in 100m hurdles at WUG
DANIELLE Williams won Jamaica’s first gold medal at the World University Games being held in Gwangju, South Korea after she won the 100m hurdles on Thursday night (Jamaica time) in 12.78 seconds (0.1m/s).
The two-time Jamaican National Senior Champion used her speed to make up for a slow start as she powered away from the field to land her first gold medal in international competition.
Meanwhile, Jamaica added two more medals for a total of five as Simoya Campbell ran a personal best one minute, 59.26 seconds for silver in the women’s 800m, while Kedisha Dallas took bronze in the women’s 200m.
A day before Kemarley Brown and Shimyra Williams had won silver medals in the men’s and women’s 100m, as Jamaica moved up to fifth on the athletics medals table from 10th the day before.
In the 100m hurdles final, Williams got out of the blocks behind the others but caught the field by the fifth hurdle and by the ninth hurdle was even with the leaders before using her speed to beat them to the line.
Nina Morozova of Russia was second in 12.83 seconds, while Michelle Jenneke of Australia took the bronze medal in 12.94 seconds.
Campbell went out hard in the 800m final and led at the half-way mark in 56.41 seconds, opening up a gap of about 15 metres at one stage of the race.
The Jamaican led by about 10 metres after coming off the final turn but New Zealand’s Angela Petty, who also had a lifetime best, chased her and caught her just before the line to win in one minute, 59.06 seconds, while third went to Germany’s Fabienne Kohlmann in one minute, 59.54 seconds, also a personal best.
Dallas made up for her fifth-placed finish in the 100m by taking third in the 200m final in a new personal best 23.24 seconds (-0.8), while her teammate Williams was fifth in 23.41 seconds.
Kazakhstan’s Viktoriya Zyabkina completed the sprint double, winning in a personal best 22.77 seconds, while American Akelya Mitchell also ran a personal best 22.95 for third place.
In the semi-finals, Dallas was second in her heat in 23.56 seconds (-1.3m/s), while Williams won her semis in 23.69 seconds (-0.3m/s).
Rhonda Whyte was sixth in the 400m hurdles final in 57.26 seconds.
Meanwhile, Salcia Slack was in eighth place after four events of the women’s heptathlon with 3,335 points, 229 off the lead.
She ran 13.73 seconds in the 100m hurdles, cleared 1.56m in the high jump, got a best mark of 12.45m in the shot put then had a time of 24.45 seconds in the 200m.
Today she will contest the long jump, javelin and 800m run to complete the event.