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[Smallville22]

World Championships - Fantastic Farah cements place in history with double-double

Mo Farah defended his World Championship 5,000m title in Moscow with another brilliant run six days after winning 10,000 gold.
The British star, who did the distance double at London 2012, needed all of his famed final-lap speed as he repeated the feat in Russia to cement his place in the pantheon of sporting greats.
Defending champion Farah, 30, was put under pressure on the final lap of the 12-and-a-half-lap race but his turn of speed saw him lead his rivals home to win in 13 minutes 26.98 seconds.
That means he is the only man apart from the peerless Kenenisa Bekele to hold the Olympic and World Championship distance double simultaneously.
“It was hard – a lot harder work than last year,” Farah said afterwards. "I never thought I would achieve something like this. It was so tough but thankfully I've come through it with another gold medal.
"I've worked so hard for this and I was just thinking about my kids and how much I've been away from them and I wanted this for them.
"Of course I felt tired after the 10,000m. I wanted to run as easy as possible today. I thought the Kenyans would work as a team and might want to box me in, but it didn't happen. I was able to go in front and control the race.
"I know I have a fast time in the 1,500m, so I was confident about my finish.
“I’m very proud to represent my county and hold the Union Jack.”
Silver went to Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet (13:27.26), who should be lauded for a ferocious challenge down the back straight, while Kenyan Isiah Kiplangat Koech was also part of that group but had to settle for bronze despite setting the same time.
It is Farah's fifth global title after he claimed the longer distance crown last Saturday. He won silver in the 10,000m in Daegu.
In a final of muddling and erratic pace, the trio of Ethiopians and Kenyans did their best to disrupt the Briton with team tactics but Farah, towards the back early on, went to the front with three laps to go.
With his principal rivals for gold, all with fresher legs after not running in the 10,000, queuing up to pass at the bell, Farah gritted his teeth, pumped his arms faster and refused to yield.
Koech appeared the main danger around the final bend but did not have the legs to get past as Farah held him at bay all the way to the line and Gebrhiwet's late burst snatched silver by one thousandth of a second.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Fraser-Pryce completes glorious double as Felix crashes out

Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce completed a brilliant world championship sprint double on Friday as she added the 200 metres gold to the 100m title but her path to glory was eased by an injury to Olympic champion Allyson Felix.
Fraser-Pryce, twice Olympic 100 metres champion, ran a brilliant bend and was always in command, coming home in 22.17 seconds to become the first woman since Katrin Krabbe in 1991 to win the world sprint double. American Kelly White did win both races in 2003 but was retrospectively disqualified for doping.
"This year I did a lot more 200 metres training, a lot of sacrifice, commitment and dedication," the 26-year-old Fraser-Pryce said.
Ivory Coast's Murielle Ahoure, who became the first African woman to finish on the podium in a sprint at the world championships when second in the 100m, got a second silver but only just.
She and Nigeria's Blessing Okagbare were both timed at 22.32 but Ahoure took it by sixth thousandths of a second, leaving Okagbare to add bronze to the silver she won in the long jump.
Felix, who had been hoping to become the first athlete to win nine world golds, pulled up with a hamstring injury halfway round the opening bend. She fell to the floor and was eventually carried from the track by her brother Wes.
Amid the ecstasy of victory, the agony was also clear to see as a distraught Felix was carried out of the stadium by her brother Wes at the same time a beaming Fraser-Pryce danced to Bob Marley's 'One Love' on her lap of honour.
"I'm extremely devastated. I was really hoping to go out here and put together a great race," Felix said.
"It is a serious injury."
Fraser-Pryce, who ran in shocking pink spikes matching her flowing hair extensions, won the 100 metres gold medal at last year's Olympics and took silver in the 200 behind Felix.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - USA bounce back from Olympic disappointment with relay gold

World 400 metres champion LaShawn Merritt anchored an emphatic American men's 4x400 metres relay triumph on Friday, a year after they were stunned in the Olympic final by the Bahamas.
The U.S., who have won the world title at every world championships since 2005, had the race sewn up from David Verburg's opening leg, with Tony McQuay and Arman Hall extending the advantage to allow Merritt a comfortable last lap.
With Merritt uncatchable, a thrilling duel for second materialised with Jamaica just pipping Russia much to the disappointment of a vociferous crowd roaring home Vladimir Krasnov.
The Bahamas failed to qualify for the final.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Photographer's camera wins shot put title for Storl

Germany's David Storl retained his world championship shot title in controversial circumstances when his winning throw, originally ruled a foul, was allowed to stand after judges consulted a photographer's camera.
Storl was trailing favourite Ryan Whiting when he launched an obviously big effort in the fourth round, only for it to be ruled a foul for his foot edging over the edge of the circle.
A long discussion with the judges followed, before a measurement was allowed and it proved well worth the trouble for Storl as his season's-best 21.73 metre effort was enough for gold.
American Whiting could not improve on his opening round 21.57 and had to settle for silver ahead of Canada's Dylan Armstrong who took bronze with 21.34.
Whiting came to Moscow with the four longest throws of the season but his failure to turn that form into gold continues the United States' recent run of failing to deliver in the shot in the biggest competitions.
There were also two field golds for the hosts as hammer thrower Tatyana Lysenko and long jumper Aleksandr Menkov, driven on by a raucous crowd, produced world-leading distances for victory.
Usually overshadowed by the track action, it was the field events that captivated a partisan crowd, who reserved the biggest cheers of the night for Lysenko and Menkov.
Lysenko's hammer victory got the Russian flags waving as the Olympic champion, who came back from a two-year doping suspension in 2009, set a championship record with a monster throw of 78.80 metres - the second furthest ever - and bowed to all four sides of the stadium in recognition of their support.
Next came Menkov, who broke the Russian long jump record twice on the way to winning with 8.56 metres in a final in which six men leapt over 8.20.
Four-times world champion Dwight Phillips of the U.S. had postponed his retirement in a bid for one final golden moment but the 35-year-old finished down in 11th with 7.88.

 

[Smallville22]

Athletics - Reports: Pistorius to face new weapons charges

Oscar Pistorius will face new charges of recklessly discharging a weapon in public when he appears in a South African court next week accused of murdering his girlfriend, local media reported on Friday.
Neither prosecutors nor lawyers for Pistorius would comment on the reports carried by TV broadcaster ENCA, radio's Eyewitness News and the national SAPA news agency, citing law enforcement officials.
They said he would face the new charges for allegedly discharging a weapon in a restaurant in January and from a car while driving home from a holiday. Both incidents are alleged to have happened before his girlfriend was killed.
The hearing on Monday is expected to be swift and procedural, with the case moved to a high court and a date set for the start of his trial, legal sources have said.
The double-amputee, known as "Blade Runner" for the prostheses he wears in competition, has admitted to firing four shots through a bathroom door at his Pretoria home, hitting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, 29, in the head, arm and hip.
Pistorius said in an affidavit presented at a magistrates' court the shooting on Valentine's Day had been a tragic mistake and he was acting in self-defence against what he thought was an intruder.
Prosecutors accused him of premeditated murder for killing Steenkamp, a model and budding reality TV figure.
Pistorius, 26, was one of the most celebrated athletes of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics in London, making the Olympic 400m semi-final and winning Paralympic gold over the same distance.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Unbeatable Farah surely in line for Knighthood

After Mo Farah's heroics in Moscow, Reda Maher explains why he is so hard to beat – and wants the Briton to receive his country's highest honour.
Mo Farah is the double world and Olympic distance champion. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Only Kenenisa Bekele has done that before, and a Briton has never previously got close to that kind of dominance.
A question many fans and pundits ask is why – when half a dozen of them have quicker personal best times – Mo’s rivals always seem to run cagey, slow races that allow Farah to use his superior finishing pace to claim victory.
It is argued that such tactical races play into Mo’s hands because, in addition to his sprinting ability, he is probably the cleverest racer on the circuit, who thrives on the hustle and bustle of the jostling pack, fending off physical attacks and constantly engaged in chatter with friends – like training pal Galen Rupp – and foes.
The writer Malcolm Gladwell theorised after the Olympics that Farah could have been beaten had somebody set a faster pace - but whoever did it would have effectively sabotaged their own chances of gold. Consequently, his rivals hung back and waited for someone else to push the pace. Of course, nobody did and the slow race effectively handed victory to Farah. The game theory of distance running played perfectly into his hands.
This kind of strategy has been employed before in other sports, as we saw when Germany, France and the rest shot themselves in the foot during the Olympic cycling road race last summer. They were so worried about the British team - and so determined to keep them at the front of the peloton where the work is harder - that they neglected to follow the breakaway that ultimately sealed gold.
Farah, though, is more complex. In the past, a quick race would have seen him suffer, as the incessant sub-60 laps over 5-10k fatigued the younger Mo. His finishing speed would be irrelevant as he would be too far off the overall pace.
But – and his rivals know this – Farah has changed. A renewed sense of professionalism saw him cut out the partying, and base his entire lifestyle around training, first in Kenya, and now in the United States with Nike’s high-tech Project Oregon team.
His stamina and speed endurance increased hugely, to the point where he rarely seems tired and can always dig out a 25s 200m at the end of a gruelling distance slog.
Farah never runs 1500m, but he did last month – and set a European record and sixth-fastest time ever in the process. Why? Because a world-class 1500m specialist led from the front, and Farah was able to follow.
Combine that with the daily half-marathons he runs while training under Alberto Salazar in the United States, and you have the perfect all-round middle- and long-distance athlete, with so many weapons in his arsenal that forcing a slow tactical race – and thus the possibility of a spiking or heavy fall – is probably the best chance you have of beating him.
World-record long-distance times are rarely run in major championships because a world record usually requires a pacemaker or two, and no one is going to sacrifice the chance of a medal to help Farah set a record.
And Farah is a championship runner – he rarely bothers with the longer distances during the regular season, often popping up for a 3000m or two-mile jaunt, or shorter – as we saw in July. As such, his championship performances will always come with a slower overall time, but a savage finishing kick.
Farah is close to being unbeatable, and his rivals know that. A world record requires a perfect storm of conditions and excellent pace-making, and expect that to be one of his next challenges before running marathons. London’s track is quick, as are those at Oslo and Brussels, so expect a showpiece run at one of these venues.
Until then there is only one way to honour the man from Mogadishu via Feltham – arise, Sir Mo.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Departing Diack's dream is athletics for all

Lamine Diack, the 80-year-old head of world athletics, says his number one aim before standing down in two years' time is to ensure his sport is available to every child, in every school in the world.
In a wide-ranging, exclusive interview with Reuters on Saturday, the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) looked back not only at his 14years in charge but at his own days as a champion long jumper in his native Senegal.
He talked about how excited he was when he first saw Usain Bolt as a 14-year-old, how he cried when he heard about Marion Jones's doping revelations and how the latest set of positive tests from Jamaica are a good thing for the sport he still loves with an undying passion.
Speaking at his Moscow hotel on the penultimate day of the world championships, Diack considered the Moscow event a success and was unperturbed by the backdrop of Russia's controversial anti-gay propaganda law.
"I think it's been a really good championships, especially coming in a post-Olympic year," he said.
"Russia has its laws that need to be respected. We come here for athletics and each can do what he wants in his private life.
"In the championships so far, I have three persona lhighlights," said Diack, a talented sportsman in his youth.
"Mo Farah doing the double, that was fantastic, and Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce winning both sprints.
"But I also really enjoyed the high jump with Bohdan Bondarenko and as a long jumper myself I was really happy to see Aleksandr Menkov jumping so well and the crowd supporting the field events."
Diack said he was not concerned about the terrible crowds in the morning sessions but was happy to see the evenings gradually getting fuller after some paltry attendances in the early days.
"Actually, we're used to it being quite empty in the mornings at the world championships," he said. "The Beijing Olympics, when it was full for the marathon and nothing else was on, and London, of course, were different."
Organisers have promised a sold-out Luzhniki Stadium for the last two days, when Bolt will seek to add the 200m and 4x100mrelay golds to his 100m win.
Diack said it was impossible to over-estimate the Jamaican's importance to the sport, especially during its latest rocky ride on the drugs front.
"He is the top star not just of athletics but of all sport and fortunately he's ours," he said.
"He's a wonderful guy and hugely important for our sport.
"I first came across him when he was 14, running in the Bahamas. I said 'this boy will run under 43 seconds for the400metres' (Michael Johnson's 14-year-old world record is 43.18)- I didn't see him as a 100m runner as he was so tall.
"And I still think it's coming.
"When he became such a star I spoke to him and his coach and told him he had to be careful because he is a hero for the youth of the world, and he said he would do his best.
"So when he had that accident, driving barefooted after dancing, I said to him - 'if you have to go to a party until 4amthen pay a driver."
While Bolt and Fraser-Pryce are flying the flag proudly for Jamaica, positive drugs tests for top-line sprinters Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Sherone Simpson have painted the Caribbean island in a different light.
Diack, however, welcomed the tests as a sign of progress.
"What happened there was a good step for us because Jamaica is now able to do anti-doping," he said. "It was Jamaican anti-doping that exposed Powell and with places like Kenya and Ethiopia able to do their own tests then we are moving forward."
Diack is also delighted that the IAAF agreed last week to return to four-year bans from 2015.
Their next target in the never-ending fight against the cheats is to target those around the athletes - the managers, agents, coaches and nutritionists who they believe should share responsibility.
"We are working very closely with the IOC on this and fortunately the entourage commission is led by Sergey Bubka," he said of the Ukrainian pole vault great who is in the running tos ucceed Diack when he stands down in 2015.
"Look at Tyson Gay - he's paying a coach, a manager, a physio but he said that someone let him down. So we need to find out from him what happened to help us take sanctions.
"We have to push countries to look at the law about people selling what they're calling supplements. When I competed I lived off rice and fish and the only supplement I took was an occasional steak.
"We need to educate people on supplements, but some issues are governmental - we can't open people's bags or go into their hotel rooms."
Drugs issues, of course, are nothing new to athletics and Diack said one of his worst moments in the sport was when American Marion Jones was exposed.
"That was a disaster," he said. "I was crying when I found out.
"We would love to get her to come to out athletes' commission and explain why she did it.
"I knew she was gifted when she was young so didn't think she was a cheat but I think maybe it was the pressure of Sydney(2000 Olympics).
"They gave her the challenge of doing better than Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis by getting five golds and I think that got to her."
While the superstars of the sport will always be a spur to the next generation, Diack said the best way to ensure the future good health of athletics is to make it available to all.
"The IAAF ask me what I want to leave as my legacy and I say I want to see athletics back in the schools, everywhere," he said.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Olympic champion Kiprotich adds marathon world title

Uganda's Olympic champion Stephen Kiprotich showed he was no one-hit wonder by breaking Kenya's stranglehold on the men's marathon at the world championships with victory in two hours nine minutes 51 seconds on Saturday.
Kiprotich was the surprise winner at last year's London Games but started as one of the favourites in Moscow and became the first non-Kenyan to win the title since 2005.
Ethiopia's Boston marathon winner Lelisa Desisa was second in 2:10:12 and compatriot Tadese Tola took third a further 11 seconds back on a warm sunny day in the Russian capital.
Part of a large leading pack for most of the race on a course which included three 10km loops along the Moskva river turning at the iconic Red Square, Kiprotich began pushing the pace just after the 30-km mark and the group slowly started to break up.
With just over two kilometres to go, the battle for gold was between Kiprotich and Desisa and the Ugandan finally broke his rival as they ran through the Olympic Park and entered the stadium alone, waving to the crowd.
Kiprotich had a quick look back across the bright blue track when a cheer went up as Desisa entered the stadium but there was half a lap between them and the Ugandan ran through the finishing tape with his arms in the air and a smile on his face before bowing to the crowd.
"I realised I could win after 40km. Then I just kept pushing. I decided to break off but my competitors were strong and I had to apply some tactics," the 24-year-old told reporters.
"I prepared for the race really well. It is fantastic that I actually train together with six of my competitors, said Kiprotich who is coached by Kenya's 1992 Olympic steeplechase silver medallist Patrick Sang in Eldoret.
It was Uganda's second ever world championship gold after Dorcus Inzikuru won the women's 3,000 steeplechase in 2005.
Peter Some in ninth was the first Kenyan finisher for a team that was missing twice world champion Abel Kirui through injury.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Green-Tregaro told to change rainbow fingernails

Swedish high jumper Emma Green-Tregaro, who painted her fingernails in the colours of the rainbow flag in support of Russia's gay community, has been told not to repeat the gesture in Saturday's world championship final.
"We have been informally approached by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) saying that this is by definition, a breach of the regulations. We have informed our athletes about this," Anders Albertsson, general secretary of the Swedish athletics federation, told a huddle of reporters outside the Luzhniki stadium.
"The code of conduct clearly states the rules do not allow any commercial or political statements during the competition."
Albertsson said the Swedish delegation had not put pressure on Green-Tregaro to change the colour of her fingernails, but "understood from Swedish media her nails are now red."
"If she knows she might be breaking the rules, that's a decision she takes, we don't have any objections on how they paint their fingernails," Albertsson added.
Tregaro's discreet support on Thursday during qualifying prompted Russia's pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva to brand her "disrespectful to our country".
Isinbayeva, an ambassador for next year's Winter Olympics to be staged in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, ignited a media storm by saying she supported the controversial law.
She backtracked the following day when she said she had been "misunderstood" after making her comments in English.
The legislation, which was passed in June, outlaws some aspects of the promotion of homosexuality and has become apolitical hot potato ahead of the Sochi Games, when it will apply to athletes and spectators.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) are seeking clarification from Russia on how the law will be applied.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Ethiopia's Defar storms to 5000m title

Meseret Defar added yet another global 5,000 metres gold to her bulging collection when she won the world title with a textbook performance on Saturday, aided by her Ethiopian team mates.
Defar, twice Olympic champion and now double world champion, also has a world silver and three global bronzes in the event after an extraordinarily consistent run over the past nine years and she was never threatened in her latest assault.
A pedestrian first half of the race briefly suggested some of the fast-finishers might be able to make a fight of it but with four laps to go Defar's team mate Almaz Ayana put her foot down and immediately spread the field.
By the bell it was just the two Ethiopians and Kenya's Mercy Cherono and Ayana played her role of domestique to perfection, towing Defar to the 200m mark when the favourite blasted clear to win with ease in 14 minutes 50.19 seconds Cherono came on to take silver in 14.51.22 ahead of Ayana (14.51.33).
Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba won the 10,000 metres earlier in the week.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Ohuruogu's relay team and Porter strike bronze for Britain

Christine Ohuruogu steered Britain to third place in the women's 4x400m as Russia earned a stunning win over USA.
The Russian and US quartets were neck-and-neck after three laps, but Russia's Antonina Krivoshapka powered ahead of Francena McCorory to send the home fans into a frenzy of delight.
Ohuruogu took the baton for the final leg for Britain after Margaret Adeoye, Eilidh Child and Shana Cox had combined to leave her neck-and-neck with the French team, but around 25m behind the leading pair.
Gold from so far back was too much to ask for the newly-crowned world 400m champion, but Ohuruogu never looked in any danger of missing out on bronze to collect her second medal of the championships and the fifth World Championships medal of her career.
The medal for Britain was followed just minutes later by another as Tiffany Porter earned a brilliant bronze for Britain in the women's 100m hurdles as USA's Brianna Rollins took gold.
Rollins shocked Australia's Olympic champion Sally Pearson to win in 12.44 seconds, with Pearson second on 12.50 and Porter clocking 12.55 to come third.
Porter's bronze gave Britain its first ever World Championship medal in the 100m hurdles.
In the final race of Saturday's action, British sprint star Adam Gemili came agonisingly close to earning a third bronze as he came off the bend in the men's 200m final in third place and looking strong.
Yet the 19-year-old was overtaken in the final stetch to finish fifth in 20.08 seconds.
It was a fine effort for such a young sprinter, but he will no doubt be disappointed to have run a tenth of a second slower than he managed in the semi-finals - particularly given that his time of 19.98 on Friday would have been good enough for bronze.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Porter claims hurdles Bronze for GB as Rollins wins

Tiffany Porter earned a brilliant Bronze for Britain in the women's 100m hurdles as USA's Brianna Rollins took gold.
Rollins shocked Australia's Olympic champion Sally Pearson to win in 12.44 seconds, with Pearson second on 12.50 and Porter clocking 12.55 to come third.
Porter's Bronze gave Britain its first ever World Championship medal in the 100m hurdles.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Rollins sees off Pearson for hurdles gold

New kid on the block Brianna Rollins dethroned Australia's 100 metres hurdles queen Sally Pearson to win gold in moscow.
American Rollins, who celebrates her 22nd birthday on Sunday, was last out of the blocks but had drawn level with defending champion Pearson by the ninth barrier and edged ahead of the Australian over the last to win in 12.44 seconds.
Olympic champion Pearson, who was plagued by a hamstring injury earlier in the season, finished second in 12.50.
Britain's Tiffany Porter got a great start but slipped back to finish third in 12.55.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Bolt storms to 200m gold in Moscow

Usain Bolt completed yet another crushing sprint double and hardly needed to extend himself to achieve it as he took his third successive world 200 metres title in the year's fastest time of 19.66 seconds, despite easing down at the end.
Fellow Jamaican Warren Weir improved on his Olympic bronze by taking silver in a personal best 19.79 from lane eight while Curtis Mitchell won bronze for the United States in 20.04, just preventing another Jamaican podium sweep as he beat Nickel Ashmeade by a hundredth of a second.
Bolt insisted that the win was as easy as he made it look.
"There was not any pressure. I went out there, focused, I was ready to go. It was just about running a good corner, and that's what I did," he said.
"I'm happy with what I did and happy to have it done. One shoot, back to back now, so I'm happy."
Britain's Adam Gemili came off the bend in third place but faded to finish fifth, a superb showing from a runner who is still just 19 years old.
Yet the young British star will no doubt be bitterly disappointed that he failed to match or better the 19.98 he ran in the semi-finals, a time that would have secured bronze.
Bolt, the world record holder with his 19.19 from Berlin four years ago, won the 100 metres last weekend having completed the sprint double twice at the Olympics and also in the 2009 world championships.
He was always in command from lane four on Saturday and halfway round the opening bend he loomed over diminutive British teenager Adam Gemili in lane five like an ocean-going liner swamping a dinghy, before disappearing into the distance.
After a slow start to the season when he was hampered by injury, Bolt has been on an upward curve in the last few weeks and his 19.73 in Paris six weeks ago was the fastest time of the year before Saturday's race.
American Tyson Gay, who ran 19.74 in June and was the last man to beat Bolt in a global 200 when he won the 2007 world championships, was unable to challenge him again in Moscow having failed a doping test.
On Sunday Bolt will hope to complete a hat-trick in the 4x100m relay on Sunday, when gold would draw him level as the all-time most decorated athlete in World Championship history: he would be alongside American trio Allyson Felix, Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson with eight world titles, but he says that prospect does not worry make any extra pressure.
"No, I'm not worried about that. For me I have made my legend start, that was the key," he said.
"Now, I'm just adding the greatness. I'm just going to continue trying to win championships and then look forward to next Olympics.
"I've discussed it with my coach about what we should do. I was telling him 'Coach we should relax next season'.
"But my coach said 'we need just to continue pushing, pushing because it's good to follow up every year with a good year so your body is used to it.'
"So we're just going to continue working hard, pushing myself, continue going to the championships day by day and hopefully everything will work out."

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Bolt leads charge for more gold

The final day of the World Athletics Championships promises to be a fast and furious one with sprint king Usain Bolt aiming to add a third gold to his Moscow tally in the men's 4x100 relay on Sunday.
Bolt has been untouchable on the blue track at the Luzhniki stadium, winning the 100 last weekend and then becoming the first man to take three successive 200 metres titles.
There should also be a third medal for Jamaica's double world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the women's relay although Olympic champions the US start as slight favourites, even minus Allyson Felix who tore her hamstring in the women's 200 final on Friday.
With the fans finally filling the stadium in numbers, the championships could end on a noisy high with Russia's Olympic gold medallist and defending champion Mariya Savinova and Ekaterina Poistogova in the women's 800 metres final.
The women's javelin, men's triple jump and men's 1,500 metres are the other medals left to be decided.

Key times on day nine (UK times)

13:00 Women's javelin final

14:15 Women's 4x100m relay heats

14:45 Men's triple jump final

14:50 Men's 4x100m relay heats

15:25 Men's 1500m final

15:50 Women's 800m final

16:10 Women's 4x100m relay final

16:40 Men's 4x100 metres relay final

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Russia's anti-gay law uproar an "invented problem" - minister

The controversy over Russia's law banning the promotion of homosexuality is an "invented problem "focused on by Western media, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said on Sunday.
The law, which parliament passed in June, bans "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" and imposes fines on those holding gay pride rallies.
It has attracted international condemnation and cast a shadow over the athletics world championships in Moscow, with questions raised over whether it will apply to athletes and spectators at next year's Winter Olympics in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The International Olympic Committee is seeking clarification from Russia while there have already been some calls for a boycott of the Games.
Mutko told reporters before the start of the track and field championships that critics should "calm down", saying the rights of all athletes competing in Sochi will be respected.
On Sunday, at a news conference before the start of the final day of the Aug. 10-18 championships, he blamed continuing debate on "an invented problem" in Western media.
"We don't have a law to ban non-traditional sexual relations," he said. "The mass media in the West have focused much more on this law more than they do in Russia."
Critics of the anti-propaganda law have said it effectively disallows all gay rights rallies and could be used to prosecute anyone voicing support for homosexuals.
Mutko said the law was intended to protect Russian children.
"We want to protect our younger generation whose physicality has not been formulated. It is a law striving to protect rights of children - and not intended to deprive anybody of their private life," he added.
Few athletes at the world championships have openly talked about the legislation, although Russia's world pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva caused international uproar when she spoke out in favour of it and appeared to condemn homosexuality, before later backtracking and saying she had been misunderstood.
American 800 metres silver medallist Nick Symmonds branded her as "behind the times", while Swedish high jumper Emma Green-Tregaro made a gesture of support for Russia's gay community during competition by painting her fingernails in the colours of the rainbow flag used by the gay movement.
After being warned the gesture broke the sport's code of conduct, Green-Tregaro appeared in Saturday's final with her rainbow nails changed to red.
Mutko, without referring to Green-Tregaro, said he hoped athletes in Sochi "come to compete and don't have time for other things".
He reiterated that athletes' private lives in Sochi would be safe.
"Russian athletes, foreign athletes, guests, those who come to Sochi will be granted all rights and freedom," he said. "This law does not deprive any citizen of rights, whether athletes or guests."

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Kiprop defends 1500m title in Moscow

Asbel Kiprop, who was injured for London 2012, defended his 1500m world title in a time of 3:36.28 at the Luzhniki Stadium.
The long-striding Kiprop's devastating finishing kick quickly took him clear when he loomed up on team mate Nixon Kiplomo Chepseba's shoulder around 80 metres from home and he coasted over the line in 3:36.28.
Kiprop, Olympic champion in 2008, finished last in London when he was nursing a hamstring injury but has been in hot form this season, including a scintillating run in Monaco last month when he became the fourth fastest of all-time at the distance.
In the battle for minor medals, American Matthew Centrowitz (3:36.78) took silver and South African Johan Cronje (3.36:83) bronze.
Algeria's Olympic champion Taoufik Makhloufi missed the championships through illness.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Sum smashes PB to take surprise 800 gold in Moscow

A personal best from Eunice Sum secured her a shock win in the 800 metres at the World Championships at the Luzhniki Stadium.
Unheralded Sum, the Kenyan trials winner, powered past the Russian Olympic champion on the home straight and threw her arms into the air as she crossed the line in a personal best time of one minute 57.38 seconds.
Savinova was second in 1:57.80 and American Brenda Martinez snatched third (1:57.91) from her compatriot and long-time race leader Alysia Johnson Montano who threw herself over the line before dissolving into tears.
Montano, fastest in the semi-finals, pulled away from the start and led by 10 metres at the bell but was clearly tying up as the athletes rounded the home bend and had nothing left to give in the dash for the line.

Result:

1. Eunice Jepkoech Sum (Kenya) 1:57.38

2. Mariya Savinova (Russia) 1:57.80

3. Brenda Martinez (U.S.) 1:57.91

4. Alysia Johnson Montano (U.S.) 1:57.95

5. Ekaterina Poistogova (Russia) 1:58.05

6. Ajee Wilson (U.S.) 1:58.21

7. Nataliia Lupu (Ukraine) 1:59.79

8. Lenka Masna (Czech Republic) 2:00.59

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Jamaica win women's 4x100 as US fluff lines

Jamaica won the women's 4x100m relay as the United States messed up a changeover at the World Championships at the Luzhniki Stadium.
France took silver while the Americans recovered from a dreadful second baton exchange to pip Britain to bronze.
Double sprint champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce led the Jamaicans home for her third gold in a national and championship record time of 41.29, while Britain - who had been second at the start of the anchor leg - initially missed out on a medal as the inexperienced Hayley Jones faded badly in the home strait.
But France, who got silver, were disqualified and Britain got their bronze.
The Jamaica quartet of Carrie Russell, Kerron Stewart, Schillonie Calvert and Fraser-Pryce streaked to gold in 41.29, the second fastest time ever run.
A mishap on the second and third interchange between Alexandria Anderson and English Gardner who started her run too soon and had to halt to grasp the baton, effectively ended U.S. victory hopes.
France came second in 42.73 and it was only a storming final leg from Octavious Freeman that secured an unlikely American bronze, Freeman eating up ground down the home straight with a sizzling run to get into to a medal position.
The U.S. set a stunning world record of 40.82 at the London 2012 Olympic Games but none of that victorious quartet featured in the Moscow final, notably Allyson Felix who tore a hamstring in the 200m final and 100m bronze medal winner Carmelita Jeter who was left out.

 

[Smallville22]

World Championships - Bolt seals Moscow hat-trick as Jamaica win relay

Usain Bolt made it a hat-trick of World Championship golds as Jamaica won the men's 4x100m relay at the Luzhniki Stadium.
After winning the individual 100m and 200m titles, Bolt's task was made easier when American fourth-leg runner Justin Gatlin fluffed his start, stumbling and veering into the Jamaican's lane. The win rubber-stamped Bolt's place as the most successful athlete in world championship history, taking his all-time tally to eight. That matches American trio Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson and Allyson Felix but the world's fastest man moved ahead by virtue of his two silvers from 2007.
The Jamaican quartet of Nesta Carter, Kemar Bailey-Cole, Nickel Ashmeade and Bolt secured the Caribbean nation a hat-trick of world titles in a time of 37.36.
Gatlin brought home the U.S. in 37.66 with Canada upgraded to bronze after Britain were disqualified, continuing their relay woes of past championships in which they have often failed to get the baton around a full lap.
The Britons were penalised after a changeover mistake between Harry Aikines-Aryeetey and James Ellington who minutes earlier had told the BBC that the team had "got the changeovers down to a tee now".