London: The London Athletics Meet, the final Diamond League meeting before the start of the Paris Olympics, produced some outstanding performances. After two frenetic back-to-back meets in Paris and Monaco, a host of athletes fine-tuned their preparations for the Summer Games in some style in perfect conditions at a packed London Stadium. Noah Lyles turned on the afterburners to set a personal record of 9.
81 seconds into a slight headwind (0.3 m/s) to claim victory in the 100m in a statement win, with the opening ceremony of the Paris Games now just five days away. The American who won double sprint gold at last year's world championships in Budapest will head to the French capital in buoyant mood and confident of repeating his world success.
"A personal best and getting faster before Paris," said Lyles after taking down South African Akani Simbine and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo. "I wanted to dip under the 9.80 - I thought I was going to get a wind like everyone else.
I know exactly where I am ahead of Paris." - Keely Hodgkinson improved her own British record and personal best to a stunning 1min 54.61sec in the two-lap race, the fastest time in the world since Caster Semenya ran a hundredth of a second faster in July 2018.
Reigning Olympic champion Athing Mu will not be in Paris after falling at the US trials, leaving Hodgkinson, a three-time global silver medallist, as a nailed-on favourite for the event. Even if Mu were to be present, it is debatable whether she might bette.