Buzz all about bolt

Usain Bolt holds up his track shoes as he celebrates winning Sunday's 4x100m relay final during the IAAF World Athletics Championships at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Dominic Ebenbichler / Reuters

Jamaican legend stole the show at an otherwise relatively lackluster event in Moscow, reports Reuters.

Toppling Usain Bolt from his sprint throne could take a while yet as the untouchable Jamaican star of athletics is still looking down on those who seek to challenge his reign. While his jet engine still roars, the others toil, with the fastest man on earth heading home from the Moscow world championships with another three golds, despite never needing to be at his peerless best.

Bolt duly completed a 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay treble to match his feats of the past two Olympics, became the most successful athlete in world championship history ... and left promising more Games glory in Rio in 2016.

Jamaican sprinters lauding it over the also-ran US powerhouse was evident again in Luzhniki Stadium as twinkle-toed Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce powered to her own treble.

In truth, it was far from a vintage championships, the buzz of last year's Olympics long gone with some notable London champions absent, a doping cloud hanging over the sport and not a world record in sight.

Like Bolt and Fraser-Pryce, the ever-smiling Mo Farah shone bright. The Briton confirmed his place among the long-distance greats by brilliantly repeating his Olympic 5,000 and 10,000 double.

Farah took 10,000 gold on the opening night of the championships and made light of a stitch during the 5,000 final six days later with another supreme final lap.

Russia topped the US in the medal standings by seven golds to six.

Popular drama queen Yelena Isinbayeva was roared to victory by an ecstatic crowd in the pole vault, taking an emotional third world title after a difficult season, then announcing she planned to return to action once she has had a baby.

However, she suffered a backlash for her subsequent anti-gay comments,.

While Isinbayeva and the controversial Russian law divided opinion, the world is united in appreciation of Bolt. He came to Moscow after a low-key season but, in the absence of injured Yohan Blake and Tyson Gay, banned after failing a drugs test, there was nobody able to pressure him.

He regained his 100m title with a workmanlike win over Justin Gatlin, then sauntered to victory over his favorite 200. Anchoring the Jamaican 4x100m relay, he took his tally of world championship golds to eight - tying Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson and Allyson Felix, but ahead of the American trio in silvers.

Apart from his false start and disqualification from the world 100 final two years ago, the 27-year-old has won every global sprint gold since claiming his first Olympic 100m title in Beijing in 2008.

"My goal is to defend (for a second time) my titles at the next Olympics as it hasn't been done before by anyone. And this world championships is a stepping stone towards that goal," he said.

The colorful Fraser-Pryce, half her long hair dyed pink, also led her rivals on a merry dance,

Her scintillating triumph in the 100m sealed from the moment she powered out of the blocks, was followed up with another virtuoso display in a 200 final that left three-time champion Felix prone and in tears after the American tore her hamstring in the first 30 meters.

New stars emerged in the hurdles in the shape of American Brianna Rollins and Trinidad and Tobago's Jehue Gordon.

Rollins, 22 on Sunday, belied her inexperience to dethrone Sally Pearson while in the men's one-lap event, Gordon, 21, edged a tiring Michael Tinsley by one hundredth of a second to confirm the promise that made him world junior champion.

Of the Olympic champions to flop in Moscow, Grenada's Kirani James was the most surprising. The defending world and Olympic titleholder finished seventh in the 400m final, won easily by LaShawn Merritt.

"I was hungry. Probably the hungriest person in the field," said the American after regaining his 2009 title and making up for last year's Olympic disappointment when he suffered injury.

Compatriot David Oliver did not even make it to London after a wretched time but the ever-cheerful American took his first global title in the 110m hurdles.

In the closest gold medal finish of all, Briton Christine Ohuruogu brilliantly punished an inexcusable lapse by defending champion Amantle Montsho, who failed to dip at the line as the former champion edged her out by four thousandths of a second. "I did not see Christine coming," the Botswanan said, with no hint of irony.

While Farah left his African rivals still figuring how to plot his downfall, there were no such problems for Ethiopia's women.

Tirunesh Dibaba powered to her third world crown in the 10,000m, extending her winning run in a distance she has never been beaten to 11. Not to be outdone, compatriot Meseret Defar eased home in the 5,000.

Kenya's dominance in the steeplechase continued through the indomitable Ezekiel Kemboi, showing his younger teammate Conseslus Kipruto a clean pair of heels and equaling the hat-trick feat of his coach, Moses Kiptanui. Milcah Chemos Cheywa also led home a Kenyan 1-2 in the women's event.

Decathlon world record holder and London champion Ashton Eaton admitted he had struggled to lift himself in 2013, but that did not stop the American winning a first world title after an opening-day roasting from his coach kickstarted him to the fastest-ever decathlon world championship 400m.

Ukrainians celebrated Bohdan Bondarenko's impressive high jump victory, while women's long jumper Britney Reese of the US landed a third successive world title.

Kenyan Edna Kiplagat became the first woman to retain the world marathon title and Ugandan Stephen Kiprotich showed his Olympic victory was no fluke by holding a trio of Ethiopians at bay.

Germany took four field event golds, led by Robert Harting who won his third successive world discus crown.

New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams described her feat of four consecutive world titles "as good for women's sport," and on the final day, Frenchman Teddy Tamgho unleashed the fourth longest triple jump leap of all time: 18.04m.

(China Daily 08/21/2013 page22)