David Oliver avenged his loss last month to Liu Xiang and Steve Mullings delivered another stellar 100m performance at the Prefontaine Diamond League athletics meeting.
Oliver won the 110m hurdles in a blazing 12.94sec to edge Liu, China’s former world record-holder who had stopped the American’s 20-win streak at the Shanghai Diamond League meeting on May 15.
Oliver’s time was the fastest in the world in this World Championships season, improving on the 13.07 previously posted by both Liu and Cuban Dayron Robles.
Jamaica’s Mullings won the 100m in a sizzling 9.80sec.
In another explosive sprint performance, American Carmelita Jeter won the women’s 100m in a world-leading 10.70sec.
Mullings came into Saturday with a world leading 9.89, set at a low-key meeting in Clermont, Florida, last month.
His training partner Tyson Gay bettered that at another meeting in Clermont on Saturday, running a 9.79 in a wind of 1.1m/sec.
Mullings credited Gay with helping him define his focus and improve his times this year.
“I just figured out how to do it,” he said. “The last couple of years I always rushed my first third. Now I’m more patient.”
American Michael Rodgers was second in 9.85 and fellow Jamaican Nesta Carter third in 9.92 in a race run in a wind of 1.3m/sec.
For Jeter, controlling her race was more important than the time.
“I just wanted to execute a good race. I wanted to put a good race together,” Jeter said. “Last couple of races I was running other people’s races and not my race, but today I wanted to come out and run Carmelita’s race.”
Marshevet Myers was second in 10.86 and Jamaican Kerron Stewart third in 10.87. Shelly-Ann Fraser, who has been nursing a sore back, was fourth in 10.95.
Two high-profile South African athletes came away without victories.
“Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius, the amputee athlete trying to qualify for the World Championships, was last in the 400m won by Angelo Taylor.
Caster Semenya, whose 800m triumph at the 2009 World Championships was followed by a gender controversy, finished second in the women’s 800m.