Jeter fastest, Okagbare qualifies for finals

American world champion Carmelita Jeter qualified fastest for the final of the women’s Olympic 100m on Saturday as the United States stayed on course to end a 16-year drought in the event.

Jeter, the fastest living woman over the distance, timed 10.83sec, outgunning the powerful Jamaican pair of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the defending champion, and Veronica Campbell-Brown, who won the 200m in Beijing in 2008.

Campbell-Brown, who won 100m bronze in Athens in 2004, was second behind Jeter in the first semi-final in a time of 10.89sec.

Fraser-Pryce won the second semi-final in a time of 10.85sec, beating former world 200m champion Allyson Felix of the United States (10.94) into second place.

In the third semi, Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare and Tianna Madison of the United States both timed 10.92sec to qualify.

The other finalists are Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and Tabago and Ivory Coast’s Murielle Ahoure.

But Jamaica’s Kerron Stewart, silver medallist in Beijing, missed out by 0.03sec.

Jeter, 32, goes into the final later Saturday eyeing America’s first women’s 100m Olympic title since Gail Devers, who triumphed in Atlanta in 1996.

The Americans have slipped behind the Jamaicans in both men’s and women’s sprinting in recent years but Jeter’s performance was a powerful statement of intent that the US want to reclaim their crown as top dogs.

The top three 100m times are held by the late Florence Griffith-Joyner, dogged by rumours of drug abuse.