Okagbare wins bronze, Ivorian Ahoure silver in 200m

Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare and Ivory Coast’s Murielle Ahoure recorded a first in World Athletics Championship when both of them, as African representatives, clinched medals in the 200 metres event in Moscow.

Blessing who had set eyes on a gold medal, won the bronze medal in 22.32 secs and a reaction time of 0.154, while Ahoure who had won silver in the 100 metres event, displayed some consistency by also winning the silver medal. She returned the same time with Blessing, but a reaction time of 0.180. Okagbare has now won two medals, the first being a silver medal in the long jump.

Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won the gold medal in 22.17 secs in the hotly contested 200 metre race, making it a double, having already won the gold in 100metres. Fraser-Pryce double also came same day that Somalia-born Briton, Mo Farah also got his own double in the 5000 metres.

Farah at the Luzhniki Stadium, outfoxed the fast-paced Kenyan team tactics to become the second man to achieve the double of world and Olympics 5,000 and 10,000 metres titles.

Farah, who won an emotional double gold at the Olympics last year clocked 13min 26.98sec to emulate Kenenisa Bekele’s double-double at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2009 Berlin worlds.

“It’s something I have worked very hard for. I was thinking about the kids and being away from them for so long,” said Farah, who trains under Alberto Salazar in Portland, Oregon.

“There was a lot of pressure but I enjoyed it and I am proud to hold the Union Jack.”

As expected, the Kenyans adopted a different race strategy in a bid to disrupt the Briton’s rhythm.

But Farah kept his nerve and his place towards the front of the pack all the way through to the final 650 metres when he accelerated away, fending off the attentions of Ethiopian Hagos Gebrhiwet, who won silver in a photo-finish from Kenyan Isiah Koech.

Jamaica’s 26-year-old Fraser-Pryce just like the 100 metres race on Monday, again dominated the 200 metre race, with three-time champion Allyson Felix of the United States pulling up injured not even halfway through.

In other finals in the field on Friday, Germany’s Christian Storl retained his shot put title, and Russia sealed two more golds, Tatyana Lysenko retaining her hammer throw title with a best of 78.80m and Aleksandr Menkov claiming the men’s long jump crown with a best of 8.56m.

The US men’s quartet, for whom 400m individual world champion Lashawn Merritt ran the final leg, won the 4x400m relay in 2:58.71, stretching their winning streak that dates back to the 2005 worlds in Helsinki.