Wariner grabs crucial Olympic boost over Merritt

Wariner grabs crucial Olympic boost over Merritt

Jeremy Wariner grabbed another crucial victory over arch-rival LaShawn Merritt at the Golden League meeting here on Friday to boost his hopes of gold in the 400m at the Beijing Olympics next month.

Meanwhile, both the contenders for the Golden League million dollar bonus stayed in contention with Croatia's Blanka Vlasic, who won her 33rd successive high jump, and Kenyan Pamela Jelimo in the 800m.

The 18-year-old Jelimo, who will be bidding to become the first Kenyan female athlete to win Olympic gold, took victory in a time of 1min 54.97sec.

The most eyecatching performance came from Cuba's Dayron Robles, who missed out on a new 110m hurdles world record by a hairsbreath 100th of a second.

Robles clocked 12.88sec, his third sub-13sec time this season, after having timed 12.87sec in Ostrava in June to set the new world record.

The 21-year-old, whose time in the Czech Republic beat the old record of 12.88sec set by China's Liu Xiang in July 2006 in Lausanne, Switzerland, has also clocked 12.96 this year.

"It's excellent," said Robles who left double Olympic medallist Terrence Trammell trailing in second in 13.19sec.

"It's a shame to miss the world record."

Olympic champion Wariner said he thought he was on the right track after he ended a two race losing streak to Merritt last week in Rome.

"I ran a lot better than I did in Rome," said Wariner.

"I wanted to make a point. And that is what I have done."

Merritt shrugged off the loss.

"I don't want to look at what happened this evening. All that I can say is that I feel well. I have just come to relaise that in sport, it is as much a question of politics.

"There are things that happen that people don't come across. There are things that happened before this race but don't worry, I feel good."