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Bolt surges to victory at Zurich track meet

AFP
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Bolt surges to victory at Zurich track meet
Jamaica's Usain Bolt celebrates after winning the men's 100-metre race in Zurich. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt eased to yet another comfortable 100-metre victory at the Diamond League meet in Zurich on Thursday.

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Bolt charged home in 9.90 seconds, leaving fellow-Jamaican Nickel Ashmeade and American Justin Gatlin trailing in behind.
   
Ashmeade finished in 9.94 and Gatlin in 9.96 in the 13th and penultimate Diamond League event of the season.
   
For once, Bolt was relatively slow out of the blocks and seemed to take longer than usual to find his rhythm, but the man with six Olympic gold medals and eight world titles to his name recovered and overtook his two rivals with 15 metres to go.
   
Earlier, Meseret Defar produced a telling sprint finish to hold off a strong challenge from fellow-Ethopian Tirunesh Dibaba and win the 5,000 metres.
   
Defar, the world champion and double Olympic gold medallist, finished in 14minutes, 32.83 seconds, with the beaten Dibaba trailing in in 14:34.82.
   
Dibaba, 28, the triple Olympic champion who completed the 5,000-metre/10,000-metre double in Beijing five years ago, tried to break clear too early after her sister Genzebe had upped the pace at the four-kilometre mark.
   
But despite covering the final 1,000 metres in 2:40.68, Dibaba could not shake off Defar and lost the run-in on the home straight when Defar kicked for the line.
   
The victory gives Defar a 15-11 head-to-head advantage over her arch-rival in 5,000-metre contests.

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