Marion Jones, El Guerrouj run year's fastest times
Gene Cherry
American Marion Jones ran the fastest women's 100 metres of 2002 and Moroccan world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj posted the year's best time in the men's mile at the Prefontaine Classic grand prix meeting on Sunday.
Triple Olympic champion Jones clocked 10.90 seconds to open her 100 metres season while El Guerrouj ran 3:50.89 on a windy, but sun-splashed afternoon.
World record holder Stacy Dragila cleared 4.72 metres to equal the fourth-best women's pole vault ever outdoors, and world silver medallist Tim Montgomery overcame a slow start to win the men's 100 metres in a disappointing -- and wind-assisted -- 9.97 seconds as world record holder Maurice Greene looked on.
Gusty winds also blew triple world champion Gail Devers to the fastest time ever by an American in the women's 100 metres hurdles -- a wind-assisted 12.29 seconds.
American Tim Mack lifted the year's leading men's pole vault mark to 5.84 metres, while Kevin Toth produced a lifetime best of 22.19 metres in the shot put to eclipse fellow Americans Adam Nelson and John Godina, who threw 21.95 and 21.91 respectively.
Jones, after being charged with a false start, came out of the blocks cautiously but still outran fellow American Tayna Lawrence.
JONES HAPPY
"It was horrible," Jones said of her start. "I had to sit, and I looked up and I saw everybody ahead of me. I just had to bear down and bring it on through. Tayna Lawrence pushed me good, and I was happy to come away with a win."
The Olympic champion was also lucky to avoid the Hayward Field wind that hampered El Guerrouj and affected the performances by Montgomery and Devers. Jones's race went off with a wind of 1.8 metres per second, under the allowed limit.
El Guerrouj, the triple world 1,500 metres champion, fought off the challenge of Kenyan world silver medallist Bernard Lagat with a burst of speed off the final bend, then, with Lagat fading, defeated Kenyan William Chirchir to secure victory.
Chirchir ran 3:51.03 and Lagat 3:52.63.
El Guerrouj had wanted to run the fastest mile ever on American soil, improving on his 3:49.92 here last year.
"But it was very windy," he said. "I felt very easy, and I am very satisfied with my race."
But being his first race of the season, "I don't have the rhythm in my legs yet", he said.
Montgomery blamed the starter of the meeting for his less than perfect performance.
"He was the worst in history," said Montgomery, who had been promising to run the fastest 100 metres ever in the U.S., 9.84 seconds.
"I couldn't go through my phases, so I had to do just like I did in high school, just stand up and run. It messed my whole race up."
Dragila, hampered by injuries during an indoor season in which she lost her indoor world record, looked impressive, three times failing at a world record 4.82 metres after wrapping up the competition at 4.72 metres.
"I'm going in the right direction," said Dragila, whose outdoor world record is 4.81 meters. "I haven't been up that high in a while. It felt good."
