Seville, Jefferson-Wooden storm into 100m diadems

CHORZOW, Poland (AFP) — World 100m champions Oblique Seville and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden roared to victories in the Silesia Diamond League while Armand “Mondo” Duplantis wrapped up another dominant pole vault display.

The assembled field was outstanding in Poland. Of the 260 athletes appearing in Silesia, 55 were Olympic medalists, 101 have made the podium at world championships, and 68 were European championships medalists.

Quality shone throughout the meet, in front of 40,000 spectators at the Stadion Slaski, none less so than when Jamaica's Seville blasted to a meet record of 9.83 seconds for victory.

Americans Kenny Bednarek (9.87) and Christian Coleman (9.93) completed the podium.

The women's blue riband event was won by their teammate Jefferson-Wooden, in the season's first head-to-head over 100m with Olympic champion Julien Alfred, in a season's best of 10.78 seconds.

Alfred of St. Lucia came in second, at 0.05 seconds.

"Julien pushed me, but before the race my coach told me to just control the race and focus on my own lane. I did that, did not panic, I think I did a good job," Jefferson-Wooden said.

Duplantis had an uncharacteristic three failures in the pole vault, before girding himself for the business end of the showdown with Greek rival Emmanouil Karalis.

The United States-born Swede eventually claimed victory with a best of 6.20m, 20-centimeter higher than Karalis. One attempt at what would have been a 16th world record, at 6.32m, was enough before Duplantis called it a day.

"The competition was super difficult for me. I was really sloppy at the beginning," Duplantis said.

"I lost a lot too much energy at those lower heights to break the world record today."

One of the stand-out performances on the track was Brazil's Alison Dos Santos, unbeaten this season, holding off Karsten Warholm in a thrilling 400m hurdles to win in 46.43 seconds, the sixth fastest time ever run.

The world-leading time smashed the meet record of 46.82 seconds set by Warholm last year.

"I expected a fast race, the line-up was amazing — everybody was here," Dos Santos said.

"I knew that to win here I had to give my best.”

"It was a great race today and a great time."

The Brazilian made it four wins from four outings in Silesia and also four wins this season over Warholm, who claimed a fourth European title in Birmingham this month, as well as a second gold as part of Norway's 4x400m mixed relay quartet.

"You cannot be mad if you set a season's best," acknowledged Warholm.

"Of course I always want to win. But 46.5 is really good coming out of the European championships, which really took its toll. The other guys have not been racing in a month and they were fresher."

Warholm's teammate Jakob Ingebrigtsen, fresh from winning European 5,000m gold, made his first Diamond League appearance in a 1,500m in two years.

Ingebrigtsen clung on to finish fourth in a race won by American Ethan Strand, in 3:30.77, ahead of Kenya's Phanuel Kipkosegi Koech and Olympic champion Cole Hocker of the US.