London,
\nAmerican Phyllis Francis won a surprise World Championships 400 metres gold on Wednesday as Olympics champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo inexplicably stumbled when seemingly certain of victory in an extraordinary finale. Francis looked out of the medals with 80 metres to go but maintained her form amid the carnage to post a personal best time of 49.92 seconds and take a shock gold. Bahrain\u2019s Salwa Eid Naser, 19, claimed a brilliant silver in 50.06s as defending champion Allyson Felix of the US faded to get bronze.<\/p>\n
Felix looked her usual smooth self despite the sodden track and had made up the stagger on Francis, a lane outside her, by the end of the first bend. However, she did not come off the final bend with her usual authority and Miller-Uibo surged ahead into the final straight.<\/p>\n
The title seemed secure but Bahamian Miller-Uibo, who famously dived over the line to pip Felix to the Olympics gold last year, lost her form. Her legs seemed to stiffen, perhaps through cramp, and became entangled.<\/p>\n
As she virtually stopped running, the fast-finishing Francis, Naser, Felix and fourth-placed Shericka Jackson all went past.<\/p>\n
Felix in top club
\nFelix\u2019s bronze took her World Championships medal haul to 14, matching the record of Jamaican sprinters Usain Bolt and Merlene Ottey. Felix\u2019s tally includes nine golds; she can make it 10 with the 4x400m relay to come.<\/p>\n
Gong ends long wait for gold<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Gong Lijiao ended her long wait for a global outdoor title when she won the shot put gold medal.<\/p>\n
The 28-old-year had won five silver and bronze medals at the World Championships and Olympics but a gold had always eluded her until a chilly, wet night in London.<\/p>\n
Gong made light of the conditions as she broke 19 metres with five of her six attempts and won with a fifth throw of 19.94m. There were only two other throws over 19 metres \u2014 Anita Marton\u2019s final effort of 19.49 which won silver for the Hungarian and USA\u2019s reigning Olympics champ Michelle Carter\u2019s third throw of 19.14 which took bronze.<\/p>\n
Gun-to-line triumph
\nNorway\u2019s Karsten Warholm announced himself as one of the sport\u2019s brightest new powerhouses as he recorded a magnificent gun-to-line triumph to win the 400m hurdles title. The 21-year-old former decathlete demonstrated all the strength he has acquired from competing in the multi-event discipline as he led from the first hurdle and held off his pursuers on the home straight to win in 48.35 seconds.<\/p>\n
He beat Turkey\u2019s European champion Yasmani Copello (48.49s), who took silver, and also spoiled Olympics champion and favourite Kerron Clement\u2019s dream of becoming the first man to win three world titles at the discipline as the American had to settle for bronze in 48.52s.<\/p>\n
It was the first track victory at any World Championships by a Norwegian since Ingrid Kristiansen\u2019s 10,000 metres triumph in Rome in 1987.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, American Phyllis Francis won a surprise World Championships 400 metres gold on Wednesday as Olympics champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo inexplicably stumbled when seemingly certain of victory in an extraordinary finale. Francis looked out of the medals with 80 metres to go but maintained her form amid the carnage to post a personal best time of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1863,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions\/1863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}