MINNEAPOLIS DANCEHALL

Reggae power and Bolt spur Jamaican women

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Shelly-Ann Fraser credited the power of reggae and the inspiration of compatriot Usain Bolt for the Jamaican sweep of the women’s 100 metres medals at the Beijing Olympics on Sunday.

The 21-year-old Fraser won Jamaica’s first gold medal in the women’s blue riband sprint with Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart both taking silver after officials were unable to separate them in a photo finish.

“When I crossed the line and saw Sherone and Kerron there — that was the moment. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else,” Fraser told reporters.

“Oh my God! That is too much. The secret of the team’s success: reggae power.”

Fraser said Bolt’s explosive world record run to win Jamaica’s first men’s Olympic 100 metres title on Saturday had inspired her victory.

“Last night was amazing, it was crazy,” she said. “I wanted to come out and do the same thing.”

After the race, American Torri Edwards said she thought she had false started and U.S Track and Field appealed against the result. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) rejected the protest.

“I wasn’t aware of anything going on about the false start, I just heard about it after I finished,” said Fraser. Stewart was in the next lane to former world champion Edwards and acknowledged there had been movement.

“She was closer to me so I felt the false start but the race is over, there is nothing we can do about it. Jamaica came out on top,” the 24-year-old said.

“I can’t say it hurt me because I got a medal.”

Jamaica has never been short of female sprinting talent.

Marlene Ottey won multiple Olympic medals, none of them gold, while Juliet Cuthbert won silver in Barcelona in 1992.

Tanya Lawrence finished on the podium in Sydney in 2000 and now has a silver after winner Marion Jones’s medals were taken away from her for a doping offence.

Veronica Campbell-Brown, who was unable to make the 100 metres team for Beijing despite being the world champion, won bronze in Athens four years ago.

“It means a great deal for Jamaica, so many women before us came so close,” said Fraser.

“It’s a great accomplishment. Coming into the Olympics, people thought we weren’t as experienced. Give us a chance — we make the best of it.”

(Additional reporting by Ken Wills, John Chalmers and Gene Cherry, editing by Ralph Gowling)

Jamaica’s Bolt breaks 200 mark, gets sprint double

BEIJING (AP)—Usain Bolt of Jamaica broke the world record by winning the 200 meters in 19.30 seconds Wednesday night, becoming the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the 100 and 200 gold medals at an Olympics.

Bolt is the first man ever to break the world marks in both sprints at an Olympics. Not even Lewis or Jesse Owens managed that.

Showing what he can do when he runs at full speed all the way through the finish—something he hadn’t done yet in the Beijing Games—Bolt eclipsed the old record of 19.32 seconds set by Michael Johnson in Atlanta in 1996.

Bolt was an astonishing 0.52 seconds ahead of Churandy Martina of Netherlands Antilles, who was second across the finish line but later was disqualified after a U.S. team protest that he had run out of his lane. The third man across the line, Wallace Spearmon of the United States, also was disqualified for leaving his lane.

Those rulings meant Shawn Crawford of the United States, the defending Olympic champion, wound up with the silver medal, and another American, Walter Dix, ended up with the bronze medal despite being the fifth man across the finish line.

The performance marked Bolt as one of the breakthrough stars of these Summer Games, coming on the heels of his victory in the 100 Saturday night. He bettered his own world record in that race by winning in 9.69 seconds—despite slowing down over the final 20 meters to showboat.