Ryan Brathwaite backs up his World Champion victory with a win in Thessaloniki (© Getty Images)
Ryan Braithwaite once again showed a convinving performance to take the win at the IAAF/VTB Bank World Athletics Final. The 21 year-old surprise World Champion confirmed that Berlin was not a coincidence. And the sprint hurdler from Barbados was just two hundreth of a second slower than at the global championships three weeks earlier. He clocked 13.16 seconds with a slight head wind of 0.3. Dexter Faulk (USA) followed in second with 13.26 and Dwight Thomas (Jamaica/13.29) was third.
It took three attempts for the athletes to settle down for the start, because they seemed to feel it was not quiet enough in the arena. But then they went off at the first attempt. Dexter Faulk was quickest out of the blocks in lane 3, but Ryan Braithwaite running in lane 5 closed the small gap very soon. For about two thirds of the race the two were joint leaders but then the World Champion moved away with splendid technique. He only had a slight contact at one hurdle on his way to victory and to the $ 30,000 prize. All the others he took excellent. That made the difference.
“All eyes were on me,” said World Champion Braithwaite and added: “Surely with Liu, Robles and Oliver in the race I could have run faster.” The 21 year-old is convinced that he can do much better. “I ran 13.16 only giving 80 percent of what I am capable of. Next year I feel I can run sub 13 seconds.”
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF