World record success at Weltklasse

Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva set the only new world record of the Weltklasse athletics meeting in Zurich on Friday, with a 5.06-metre pole vault.

Isinbayeva has broken the world outdoor and indoor marks 27 times. The result added a centimetre to the world record she set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “I was hungry for the victory,” she said afterwards.

Star attraction Usain Bolt clocked 9.81 seconds in the 100-metre race, but failed to match his earlier world record of 9.58 seconds set at the World Championships in Berlin.

It was Bolt’s second time at the Weltklasse. He came in 0.7 seconds ahead of fellow countryman Asafa Powell and did not really look supreme until the latter part of the race. Bolt later said he felt tired and his body had “not really responded” during the race, but the time was “not that bad in the end”.

The Swiss 4×100 metres relay team celebrated after beating Switzerland’s previous record – set in Madrid in 2008 – with a time of 38.78 seconds that placed them sixth. The winners were Jamaica with 37.70.

In all, there were four world record holders, 16 newly-crowned world champions and 14 Olympic 2008 champions competing for the meeting’s 16 events.

The Weltklasse Zurich meeting, part of the prestigious Golden League circuit,
has been running since 1928.

The 2009 circuit started in Berlin in June, and moved on to Oslo, Rome, Paris, Zurich and will end in Brussels on September 4. The goal is to win the famous Golden League Jackpot – awarded to athletes winning their event at all six Golden League meetings. There are ten jackpot disciplines.

swissinfo.ch and agencies