Christian Coleman runs world’s fastest 100m in three years

By Nick ZaccardiAug 31, 2018, 4:00 PM EDT

Christian Coleman sprinted to take something at the Diamond League final in Brussels. He got it.

The world’s best sprinter since Usain Bolt‘s retirement ran the world’s fastest 100m in three years, 9.79 seconds into a headwind on Friday night. Adjusting for wind and altitude, it may have been the best sprint ever outside of the Bolt era.

“Mine,” Coleman repeated in a head-shaking, chest-thumping, finger-pointing celebration.

Coleman, a Rio Olympic 4x100m prelim runner, capped a roller-coaster season following his breakout 2017, when he ran a 40-yard dash one tenth faster than the NFL Combine record and beat Bolt to a 100m silver medal at the world championships behind Justin Gatlin.

He returned in the winter indoor season to three times run under the 60m world record. Coleman then struggled with hamstring problems in the spring and lost his first two 100m races.

Coleman took June off from meets to heal up. When he returned, Coleman won a pair of 100m races in July and August, but each time the runner-up clocked the same time to the hundredth. Coleman also developed a tendency to start strong, with the rest of the field gaining on him in the last half.

Not so Friday.

Coleman stormed out of the blocks as usual, but he kept enough of a lead that he eased crossing the finish ahead of countryman Ronnie Baker, who had the world’s fastest time of 2018 (9.87). Coleman won by .14, with Baker losing nearly a tenth freezing in the starting blocks.

“I came into the whole week with a chip on my shoulder that people had stopped talking about me,” Coleman said, according to Reuters. “They forgot everything I did last year and at the indoors. I mean you can’t blame them.”

Full Brussels results are here.

The outdoor track and field season concludes in earnest with the IAAF Continental Cup next weekend, streaming live on NBC Sports Gold and airing on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA.

In other events Friday, Ethiopian Selemon Barega ran the sixth-fastest 5000m in history, a 12:43.02.

American revelation Shelby Houlihan lost a 1500m for the first time this season, unable to catch Brit Laura Muir in the final straightaway of the 1500m. Muir clocked 3:58.49, edging Houlihan by .45.

Houlihan, 11th at the Olympics and 13th at the 2017 Worlds in the 5000m, this year won two Diamond League 1500m races, plus swept the 1500m and 5000m at the U.S. Championships and broke the American 5000m record.

Olympic champion Brianna McNeal edged world-record holder Kendra Harrison in the 100m hurdles, 12.61 to 12.63, to cut Harrison’s lead in their 2018 head-to-head to 3-2.

Double Olympic gold medalist Christian Taylor was beaten by Cuban-born Portuguese rival Pedro Pablo Pichardo in the triple jump. Pichardo is set to end Taylor’s three-year reign as the year-end world No. 1. Taylor chose the non-global championship year to focus on trying to break 45 seconds in the 400m.

Mondo Duplantis, the recent Louisiana high school graduate pole vaulter for Sweden, surprisingly bowed out at 5.83 meters. Two weeks ago, Duplantis cleared 6.05 meters at the European Championships. Russian Timur Morgonov won Friday by clearing 5.93 meters.

Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser won the 400m in 49.33, topping world champion Phyllis Francis and U.S. champion Shakim Wimbley. The field lacked Olympic gold and silver medalists Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Allyson Felix.

Miller-Uibo owns the fastest time in the world of 2018 (48.97). Felix has scarcely competed in this non-global championship season.

Kenyans went one-two-three in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, led by world-record holder Beatrice Chepkoech in 8:55.10. World champion Emma Coburn of the U.S. was fourth in 9:05.61.

Croatian Sandra Perković finished outside the top two of a discus competition for the first time since 2014. The Olympic and world champion was bettered by Cuban Yaime Perez (65 meters) and Brazilian Andressa de Morais (64.65).

Olympic triple jump champion Caterine Ibargüen of Colombia added a Diamond League season title in the long jump, though the final lacked Olympic champion Tianna Bartoletta and world champion Brittney Reese.

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2023 French Open men’s singles draw, scores

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 4:59 PM EDT

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The French Open men’s singles draw is missing injured 14-time champion Rafael Nadal for the first time since 2004, leaving the Coupe des Mousquetaires ripe for the taking.

The tournament airs live on NBC Sports, Peacock and Tennis Channel through championship points in Paris.

Novak Djokovic is not only bidding for a third crown at Roland Garros, but also to lift a 23rd Grand Slam singles trophy to break his tie with Nadal for the most in men’s history.

FRENCH OPEN: Broadcast Schedule | Women’s Draw

But the No. 1 seed is Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, who won last year’s U.S. Open to become, at 19, the youngest man to win a major since Nadal’s first French Open title in 2005.

Now Alcaraz looks to become the second-youngest man to win at Roland Garros since 1989, after Nadal of course.

Alcaraz missed the Australian Open in January due to a right leg injury, but since went 30-3 with four titles. Notably, he has not faced Djokovic this year. They could meet in the semifinals.

Russian Daniil Medvedev, the No. 2 seed, was upset in the first round by 172nd-ranked Brazilian qualifier Thiago Seyboth Wild. It marked the first time a men’s top-two seed lost in the first round of any major since 2003 Wimbledon (Ivo Karlovic d. Lleyton Hewitt).

All of the American men lost before the fourth round. The last U.S. man to make the French Open quarterfinals was Andre Agassi in 2003.

MORE: All you need to know for 2023 French Open

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2023 French Open Men’s Singles Draw

Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek set French Open rematch

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 3:25 PM EDT

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Coco Gauff swept into the French Open quarterfinals, where she plays Iga Swiatek in a rematch of last year’s final.

Gauff, the sixth seed, beat 100th-ranked Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 7-5, 6-2 in the fourth round. She next plays the top seed Swiatek, who later Monday advanced after 66th-ranked Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko retired down 5-1 after taking a medical timeout due to illness.

Gauff earned a 37th consecutive win over a player ranked outside the top 50, dating to February 2022. She hasn’t faced a player in the world top 60 in four matches at Roland Garros, but the degree of difficulty ratchets up in Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

Swiatek won all 12 sets she’s played against Gauff, who at 19 is the only teenager in the top 49 in the world. Gauff said last week that there’s no point in revisiting last year’s final — a 6-1, 6-3 affair — but said Monday that she should rewatch that match because they haven’t met on clay since.

“I don’t want to make the final my biggest accomplishment,” she said. “Since last year I have been wanting to play her, especially at this tournament. I figured that it was going to happen, because I figured I was going to do well, and she was going to do well.

“The way my career has gone so far, if I see a level, and if I’m not quite there at that level, I know I have to improve, and I feel like you don’t really know what you have to improve on until you see that level.”

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

Also Monday, No. 7 seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia dispatched 36th-ranked American Bernarda Pera 6-3, 6-1, breaking all eight of Pera’s service games.

Jabeur, runner-up at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year, has now reached the quarterfinals of all four majors.

Jabeur next faces 14th-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia, who won 6-7 (3), 6-3, 7-5 over Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo, who played on a protected ranking of 68. Haddad Maia became the second Brazilian woman to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal in the Open Era (since 1968) after Maria Bueno, who won seven majors from 1959-1966.

Pera, a 28 year-old born in Croatia, was the oldest U.S. singles player to make the fourth round of a major for the first time since Jill Craybas at 2005 Wimbledon. Her defeat left Gauff as the lone American singles player remaining out of the 35 entered in the main draws.

The last American to win a major singles title was Sofia Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open. The 11-major drought matches the longest in history (since 1877) for American men and women combined.

In the men’s draw, 2022 French Open runner-up Casper Ruud reached the quarterfinals by beating 35th-ranked Chilean Nicolas Jarry 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-5. He’ll next play sixth seed Holger Rune of Denmark, a 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7) winner over 23rd seed Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina.

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2023 French Open Men’s Singles Draw

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