Eilidh Child continued to get up to speed for the Commonwealth Games with an encouraging performance in Rome last night.
The Scot recorded a season's best time of 54.82 for a third-place finish in the women's 400m hurdles - a time which was also enough to consolidate her place at the top of the UK rankings. Jamaican athlete Kaliese Spencer, who is the favourite for the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, won in Italy with a time of 53.97. It is the best time posted in the world this year.
Adam Gemili simply recorded his best time of the season as he took third place in the 100 metres in Rome. The British youngster crossed the line in 10.07 seconds, 16 hundredths of a second behind American winner Justin Gatlin. Jamaica's Nesta Carter finished in second place with a time of 10.02, while Britain's Richard Kilty placed last in 10.26secs.
There was disappointment in Rome too for he world and Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce as she finished in eighth place in the women's 100m. It was the second time in successive events that she has finished in that position, with Tori Bowie of the United States running winning in 11.05.
The women's 100m hurdles proved to be a much tighter affair, with world champion Brianna Rollins only just getting the better of fellow American Dawn Harper-Nelson - winning the event by just one hundredth of a second.
Rollins - who ran in 12.53 - had appeared comfortable during the initial stages only for her compatriot to make a late surge and force a photo finish. Another American, Queen Harrison, was in pursuit in third.
It seemed a comprehensive success for the States, if not the expected outcome. Rollins' main challenge had been expected to come from Olympic champion Sally Pearson only for the Australian to be forced to pull out of the competition earlier in the day.
Pearson later confirmed that she would have risked injury by running the race and had elected to withdraw as a precaution. "I am not injured but if I ran I either would've torn my hamstring or ran well off my best - either way was not an option for me," she later added on social media.
Kenya's Silas Kiplagat would also leave it late before reeling in world indoor champion Ayanleh Souleiman and take victory in the men's 1500m with a time of 3:30.44. There would be further Kenyan success as Eunice Sum won the women's 800m in 1:59.49.
World 400m champion LaShawn Merritt also breezed to victory in 44.48, while Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba dominated in the women's 5000m and Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim won the men's high jump with a 2.41m clearance.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article