Liu Xiang of China celebrates setting a world record in the men's 110-metre race at the IAAF Super Grand Prix athletics meeting in Lausanne yesterday. Liu won the race in 12.88 seconds. - REUTERS
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS bronze medallist Brigitte Foster-Hylton and World Junior Championships gold medallist Usain Bolt narrowly missed national records at yesterday's Athletissima meeting in the Swiss city of Lausanne.
The meet also produced a world 110m hurdles record when China's Olympic champion Liu Xiang ran 12.88 to erase the previous mark of 12.91 he held jointly with Great Britain's Colin Jackson.
Meanwhile, Marion Jones ran her second sub-11 seconds, 19.94, in three days to win the 100m.
Bolt ran a life-time best 19.88 seconds, two hundredths of a second outside of Donald Quarrie's 35-year-old national record of 19.86.
Despite his impressive run, which makes him the second fastest Jamaican over the distance, Bolt's effort was only good enough for third, beaten by Xavier Carter of the United States who ran 19.63, the second fastest time in history.
Only superman Michael Johnson's world record run of 19.32 is better. Another American, Tyson Gay, ran a career best 19.70, while the highly-touted Wallace Spearmon was fourth in 19.90.
In the women's 100m hurdles, Foster-Hylton missed her own national record by four hundredths of a second. Again, Foster-Hylton's impressive 12.49 was only good enough for third.
World champion Michelle Perry won the event in 12.43 while Damu Cherry was second in 12.44.
Michael Frater (10.09) and Dwayne Thomas (10.16) finished third and eighth respectively in the men's 100m. Leonard Scott (10.05) won ahead of Olusoji A. Fasuba (10.09).
Maurice Wignall's 13.33 in the men's 110m hurdles was only good enough for eighth, while Danny McFarlane (49.28) and Dean Griffiths (49.51) put them out of the top eight in the two-race event.
Kenia Sinclair (1:58.64) was sixth in the women's 800m which was won by Kenyan Janeth Jepkosgei (1:56.66) while Trecia Smith's leap of 14.68m gave her fifth in the women's triple jump.
Russian Olympic champion Tatyana Lebedeva won the event with a leap of 15.19m.
Meanwhile, Sherone Simpson who pulled out of yesterday's event, will be out of action for a couple of weeks.
Simpson's manager, Paul Doyle, confirmed yesterday that his athlete complained of her quad feeling tight on the eve of yesterday's meet, thus withdrawing at the last minute.
"She will also miss Rome because we want to play it safe," Doyle said. "She should be back for London and Stockholm before that," he said.
