Lemaitre hammers home sprint credentials in Split

European sprint king Christophe Lemaitre took advantage of the missing Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay to clinch victory in the 100m at the Continental Cup in Split on Saturday.

World record holder Bolt has ended his season while US sprinter Gay was taking part only in the relay, leaving the field open for French ace Lemaitre to win in 10.06sec.

At least Gay had the consolation of helping the Americas team win the 4x100m relay after a baton blunder by the Europeans.

Gay, Wallace Spearmon, Daniel Bailey and Churandy Martina cruised home to win in 38.25sec after the French quartet messed up their final exchange between Pierre-Alexis Pessonneuax and Teddy Tinmar and failed to finish.

Kazakhstan’s Olga Rypakova, representing Asia/Pacific, registered one of the day’s most impressive performances winning the triple jump in 15.25m, the seventh best leap of all-time.

Another competition record was set in the men’s 400m by US athlete Jeremy Wariner. Wariner clocked 44.24sec with Jamaican Ricardo Chambers in second place in 44.59sec.

Svetlana Feofanova cleared 4.70m at the third time of asking to add the pole vault title to her European crown.

The men’s 400m hurdles saw Britain’s David Greene win in a personal best of 47.88sec, stunning American favourite Bershawn Jackson who was third.

Bernard Lagat, of the United States, won the men’s 5,000m ahead of Moses Kipsiro while Meseret Defar of Ethiopia took the women’s 3,000m in 9min 09.33sec.

The women’s 800m saw Diamond League winner Janeth Jepkosgei claim victory in 1min 57.88sec.