The heptathlon 100m hurdles at the IAAF World Championships London 2017 (© Getty Images)
It might not have been as quick as the PB she set in Gotzis earlier this year, but Nafissatou Thiam’s 13.54 in the heptathlon 100m hurdles this morning was the second-best mark of her career.
Notably, it was also faster than the time she ran en route to winning the Olympic title in Rio last year.
So while the Belgian star was a couple of tenths down on what she would have liked, her performance would not have dented her gold medal chances.
Her biggest threat to the title, Germany’s Carolin Schafer, was closer to lifetime best form. The 25-year-old clocked 13.09 to get within 0.02 of her recent PB. But the other big medal contender, Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece-Admidina, appeared to struggle in the latter half of the fourth heat, crossing the line a distant eighth in 13.71.
Like Schafer, Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson ran at near-PB pace. Her 13.33 was just 0.04 shy of her best, boosting her chances of a medal.
Nadine Visser of the Netherlands was the fastest of the day, clocking 12.85, but there were surprisingly few PBs. Austrian duo Ivona Dadic (13.68) and Verena Preiner (13.79) and teenage talents Geraldine Ruckstuhl (13.80) and Shukh (14.32) were the only women in the 31-strong field to set a PB.
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
