guardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 August 2012 23.49 BST
Yohan Blake crossed the line in 9.69sec at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne. Only Usain Bolt has ever run quicker. Photo: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA
The 2012 Olympics always felt like it was going to be a watershed in men's sprinting. The only question was what lay on the other side. The world got a little glimpse of what lies ahead in Lausanne on Thursday night, when Yohan Blake won the 100m in 9.69sec. Only Usain Bolt has run quicker. Twenty minutes later Bolt was out on the track himself, winning the 200m in 19.58sec, ahead of the Netherland's Churandy Martina, who set a national record of 19.85sec.
Both Bolt and Blake set meeting records, but not for the first time, you suspect, in years and months to come, Bolt's performance was just a little overshadowed by that of his young training partner. Blake destroyed a field who included three Olympic 100m finalists, leading from start to finish, accelerating away as the race went on. Blake's time cut six-hundredths of a second off his personal best, and left him tied with Tyson Gay as the second-fastest 100m runner in history.
On the night Gay was just another athlete trailing behind him, finishing second in 9.83sec. Blake did it running into a headwind and off the back of a bad case of flu. "I have been sick all week," he said. "Thank God I have recovered, not fully, but I'm getting there." Asked about the prospect of another head-to-head, Blake made it pretty clear what it would take. "I will run with Usain any day, because he is my training partner, and I love running with him, but they will have to put up big money." It would be worth it.
"It was all right," Bolt said of his own run, seemingly a little underwhelmed. "It's at the end of the season so it was just a bit of fun. I knew Yohan was going to run fast. I predicted 9.72sec but he went a little faster." If anything, he was more excited about the new air-guitar routine he unveiled while he was standing on the start blocks.
Kirani James made almost as easy a job of winning the 400m, coasting through the first 200m before kicking hard around the final bend to finish in 44.37sec, only he and LaShawn Merritt have run quicker this year. The Dominican Republic's LuguelÃn Santos was second behind James, just as he was in the Olympic final.
The women's 100m did see a showdown between the two best sprinters in the world, with the Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce taking on the world champion Carmelita Jeter. Fraser-Pryce led out of the blocks but Jeter pulled back into the race in the final metres and won it with a dip for the line. They both finished in 10.86sec, separated only by thousandths of a second.
Away from the track all eyes were on the high jump competition, where Robbie Grabarz equalled Steve Smith's British record of 2.37m. That, though, was only good enough for third place behind Russia's Ivan Ukhov and Qatar's Mutaz Barshim. Grabarz's was one of several British athletes who may have been left wishing they could just have found this kind of form a fortnight or so earlier.
Perri Shakes-Drayton was third in the 400m hurdles, her time of 53.83sec was six hundredths of a second outside her PB. And Lawrence Okoye finished second in the discus, behind the 2008 Olympic champion Gerd Kanter. Okoye's 65.27m was one of four throws he produced that all cleared 64m.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/23/yohan-blake-second-fastest-100m?CMP=twt_gu