By Lori Ewing
BUDAPEST, Sept 12 (Reuters) – Audrey Werro outpaced Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson to win the women’s 800 metres, one of the most anticipated showdowns of the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship on Saturday, while Melissa Jefferson-Wooden blazed to the world’s fastest time this season to win the women’s 100m.
• Switzerland’s Werro led from the gun to pick up the $150,000 winner’s paycheque, clocking 1:55.88, 0.38 ahead of Briton Hodgkinson, while double world 400m hurdles champion Femke Broeders-Bol of the Netherlands was third.
• Jefferson-Wooden of the U.S. pulled away from the field to earn the Ultimate women’s 100m title in 10.62, 0.12 ahead of Olympic champion Julien Alfred of St Lucia.
• American Kenny Bednarek pulled away from Jamaica’s Oblique Seville to capture the men’s 100m title in 9.85, to Seville’s 9.90.
• Reigning world champion Collen Kebinatshipi from Botswana won the men’s 400m in 43.39 seconds, while double world champion Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic won the women’s 400m in 49.07 seconds.
• Japan’s Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi captured the women’s javelin title with a throw of 68.92m, while 18-year-old Yan Ziyi of China was second with 68.05 — the first time in 14 years two women have thrown over 68m in the same event.
• Klaudia Kazimierska of Poland outsprinted Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell over the final 100m to win the women’s 1,500m in 3:57.55. “Two years ago I was still working in tech sales so it has been a long process to get here,” said Hunter Bell, who finished 0.17 shy of victory. “It just shows that I can do anything.”
• Double Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou of Greece flew 8.35m to win the men’s long jump, while American Sandi Morris cleared 4.90m to win the women’s pole vault.
• The three-day Ultimate Championship concludes on Sunday.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing)
