Cordera Jenkins of USA during the Boys' 110m Hurdles heats at the World Youth Championships (© Getty Images)
Ryan Brathwaite, Cordera Jenkins and Artur Noga's 110 metres high hurdling abilities, gave the IAAF/Maroc Telecom World Youth Championships a speedy start in Marrakech on Wednesday morning.
Brathwaite who had come to the Moroccan city ranked ninth fastest in the world this year, lowered his personal best from 13.81seconds to a fantastic 13.34sec.
That clearly suggests the Barbados teenager is in shape to challenge the championships six-year-old record Ladji Doucoure of France achieved when running 13.26sec in Bydgoszcz.
Brathwaite's effort was a healthy improvement on the world leader of 13.66sec set by Quentin Seigel last month.
In his heat the German easing down, was runner-up in 13.96sec behind Tadeusz Hyzy who clocked 13.94sec.
Noga from Poland was first to make inroads into the world leader, running a lifetime best of 13.59sec, before an even more remarkable performance from Jenkins.
The American with a pre-championships leader of 14.00sec, powered away in the closing stages of his heat, to a rewarding clocking of 13.56sec.
There certainly was a depth to the first round qualifiers, the three-fastest boys of the day and 11 other entrants achieving the best performances of their careers.
The women's heats also didn't take very long to excite a sizeable and appreciative crowd who had turned out to watch the morning's action and even managed several "Mexican Waves" in the scorching 35 degrees temperature.
Ebony Collins the USA's world leader, coasted to a three metres victory in the opening preliminary round race in a time of 11.60sec.
Then Franciela Krasucki in the fifth heat, threw down the gauntlet to her rivals with a speedy 11.39sec, the Brazilian bettering the 11.60sec global best set by Collins in June.
Initially that proved to be the fastest time of the first round from Krasucki who before this year had a pb of 11.48sec and hinting there will be more to come before Thursday's final.
But then Bianca Knight looked just as impressive. The American backed by a helpful 1.8m/s wind flew down the home straight in 11.38sec - 0.18sec quicker than she had ever ran before.
Jamaica's Schillonie Calvertwith a pb 11.40sec, was the third fastest while in total there were 43 lifetime bests posted by the next generation of women's sprinters.
Harry Aikines Aryeetey last year's Commonwealth Youth silver medallist, was the fastest qualifier in the boy's race, roaring to a personal best 10.38sec.
In tonight's semi-final he will be joined by his fellow Briton Alex Nelson. The world number one clocked 10.56sec to win his heat.
Brazil's Cleiton Sabino with a huge long jump effort of 7.43 metres, led the octathlon after the opening two events.
Sabino with a score of 1765pts was ahead of Saudi Arabia's Mohammed J.M. Al-Qaree wo had a tally of 1709pts and Slovenia's Rok Derziac whose total after the 100m and long jump, stood at 1679pts.
Matthias Treff with a huge second round effort of 74.37m, added four metres to his German record to lead the javelin qualifiers for the final.
The shot put final tonight will highlight Jan Hoffman, the South African throwing the furthest in the morning session with a best performance of 19.90m.
