Brussels Diamond League: Belgians 2nd and 3rd in 4x100m mixed relay
The 49th Brussels Diamond League meeting, the Memorial Van Damme, attracted a host of world-class athletes and offered competitors one of their last chances to qualify for next month’s World Championships in Tokyo. Belga English followed the action at the King Baudouin Stadium throughout Friday evening.
The Dutch team won the 4x100m mixed relay race, with the Belgian Falcons A team, consisting of Delphine Nkansa, Simon Verherstraeten, Rani Rosius and Kobe Vleminckx, finishing second. The Belgian B team took third place. The race was the closing event of the meeting.
No world record was broken at this year's event. The biggest chance of the evening was for Winfred Yavi, Olympic champion in the 3,000m, who was aiming for a world record in the rarely run 1 mile steeplechase but she was not fast enough.
Belgian Jana van Lent set the second national record of the evening, 14:37:47, in the women's 5,000m. She has now qualified for the World Championships. Kenya's Agnes Jebet Ngetich wanted to attack the world record, but failed to break it despite winning the race.
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden lived up to her role as favourite in the women's 100m. The American won convincingly in 10:76. Sha'Carri Richardson was second in 11:08 and Britain's Daryll Neita completed the top three. Delphine Nkansa was the top-placed Belgian, finishing seventh in 11:24, a season's best. Rani Rosius finished in ninth place.
Naomi Van den Broeck achieved a new national record in the 400m hurdles, 54:12, in front of her home crowd, improving on the previous record set by Hanne Claes (54:33). She finished in third place. American Anna Cockrell won the race, with Belgian Paulien Couckuyt finished last.
Nafi Thiam jumped 6.4m on her fifth attempt in the long jump, finishing in fifth place. Four of her six jumps were invalidated. The three-time Olympic heptathlon champion holds the Belgian record with a jump of 6.86m but has not yet exceeded 6.48m this season.
Eliott Crestan was the first Belgian winner of the evening, in the men's 800m. Crestan finished second at last year's European Championships in Apeldoorn. Fellow Belgian Thibo De Smet finished in sixth place.
Dylan Borlée finished second behind Jamaica's Antonio Watson in the 400m in 44:94, a personal record. Teammate Jonathan Sacoor came third in 45:39.
As is customary, a number of Belgian athletes were honoured at the opening ceremony during a lap of honour on the track. Nina Derwael, the Olympic gymnastics champion from Tokyo, is one of them. Last month, Derwael announced her retirement with immediate effect.
© BELGA PHOTO VIRGINIE LEFOUR
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