Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang thrilled a hometown crowd in Shanghai yesterday, starting his outdoor season with the fastest 110m of the year as he seeks to recapture Olympic glory at London 2012.

Jamaican sprint star Asafa Powell banished recent injury woes with a 9.95 seconds win in the men’s 100 metres at the Diamond League event, after a pulled hamstring led to a last-place 200m finish a week earlier.

In front of a rapturous crowd Liu, who in 2004 became China’s first athlete to win an Olympic track gold medal, ended world number one David Oliver’s 20-race winning streak with a time of 13.09.

Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown, the fastest woman in the world last year, won the women’s 100m (10.92), beating Carmelita Jeter, who clocked the year’s fastest time – 10.86 – in Kingston.

Campbell-Brown, who turned 29 yesterday, hailed the win as “her birthday gift and praised her reception from the “warm and welcoming” Chinese crowd.

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