Olympic
champions get revenge at Linz meet
Reuters
20 August 2001 - Linz, Austria - Olympic champion Anier Garcia of Cuba got his
revenge over American world champion Allen Johnson by winning the 110 metres
hurdles at the Linz Grand Prix II athletics meeting on Monday.
Garcia clocked 13.17 seconds to edge out the triple world champion by a mere 3 hundredths of a second in driving rain at the Upper Austrian city.
Another Olympic champion to beat a world champion was Bulgaria’s Tereza Marinova, bronze medallist at this month’s world championships in Edmonton. She beat Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia in the triple jump with a leap of 14.70 metres.
Lebedeva, who took silver at the Sydney Olympics and gold in Edmonton earlier this month, only managed 14.48 metres.
Moroccan 400 metres hurdle world champion Nezha Bidouane proved she is in a class of her own with an emphatic win over Daimi Pernia of Cuba in 55.48 seconds against the world bronze medallist’s 56.06.
In the men’s 100 metres, Aziz Zakari of Ghana ran a personal best of 10.04 seconds to snatch victory from Kim Collins of St Kitts, who took bronze in the 200 metres in Edmonton.
Veteran American sprinter Dennis Mitchell was tired after running in a grand prix 11 meeting at Gateshead, England on Sunday and failed to qualify for the 100 metres final.
Backed by a partisan home crowd, Olympic and world silver medallist Stephanie Graf of Austria reaped her third win of the year at 800 metres in the absence of arch-rival Maria Mutola of Mozambique in a time of one minute 58.86 seconds.
Olympic gold medallist Olga Shishigina of Kazakhstan encountered little resistance in winning the 100 metres hurdles after a no show by world champion Anjanette Kirkland of the U.S.A.
