Season’s best for Clarke, Goule at London Diamond League
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Roshawn Clarke and Natoya Goule both ran season’s best times at Saturday’s Diamond League meeting at the London stadium, the final warm up meet before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris in a week’s time.
Clarke ran 47.63 seconds to place second in the men’s 400m hurdles as he finished behind Brazil’s Alison dos Santos who won easily with 47.18 seconds while Qatar’s Ismail Doudai Abakar ran a personal best 47.72 seconds for third.
Goule-Toppin was fourth in a fast women’s 800m where all 10 athletes got at least a season’s best, running 1:56.83 seconds, fifth best in the world and her fourth best time ever.
Three British athletes ran life time best times to finish ahead of Goule, Keely Hodgkinson set a British national record and world leading 1:54.61 seconds, sixth best all time, Jemma Reekie was second with 1:55.61 seconds and Georgia Bell third with 1:56.28 seconds.
Rushell Clayton was third in the women’s 400m hurdles in 53.24 seconds, Andrenette Knight was fourth in a season’s best 53.69 seconds and Shiann Salmon seventh in 54.50 seconds.
Ackeem Blake was fifth in the men’s 100m in 9.97 seconds (-0.3m/s) and Yohan Blake was eighth in 10.23 seconds.
— Paul A Reid