Australian Sally Pearson held her nerve to win the women’s 100m hurdles with a powerful dipping finish last night and give her country a welcome boost in the medals table.
The reigning world champion clocked an Olympic record of 12.35sec, edging Beijing Olympic gold medallist Dawn Harper, of the United States, who timed a personal best of 12.37sec. American Kellie Wells claimed bronze in 12.48sec.
Pearson’s victory was Australia’s first track and field gold of the London Games, coming a day after Mitchell Watt claimed a silver in the men’s long jump, with Steve Hooker still to go in the men’s pole vault.
It was a welcome tonic for the Australian team as the sporting powerhouse had been languishing on the medals table, but is now up to 11th with four golds.
But it is a far cry from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, where they finished sixth in the table with a bumper haul of 14 golds and 46 medals in total.
Pearson, 25, got off to a cracking start along with Wells, just after the heavens opened as the hurdlers were being introduced to the sell-out 80,000-capacity crowd at the Olympic Stadium.
But the rain did not dampen the electric atmosphere, with vociferous support for Pearson.
The Australian maintained her foot-perfect, fluid style throughout to safely negotiate the 10 hurdles.
Although Harper produced a strong middle section of the race, Pearson sensed the American’s presence across three lanes and came up with a savage dip for the line that saw her set the world’s fastest time this season.
With the times so close, there was a nervous wait to see who had won the race, and when Pearson’s name flashed up as the gold medallist, the Australian roared with delight before setting off on a lap of honour.
Algeria’s Taoufik Makhloufi claimed 1,500m gold in convincing fashion as he pulled clear down the home straight to win in 3:34.08.
The victory ends a whirlwind couple of days on a high for Makhloufi, who on Monday was excluded from the Games for not trying in his 800m heat only to be reinstated that night on medical grounds.
American Leonel Manzano took the silver and Moroccan Abdalaati Iguider the bronze.
Russia’s Ivan Ukhov won the Olympic men’s high jump title with a best of 2.38 metres, the second-best in the world this year.
America’s Erik Kynard took silver with 2.33m, with the bronze medal shared three ways between Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar, Derek Drouin of Canada and Britain’s Robbie Grabarz.
The long-haired Ukhov last month cleared 2.39m to win the Russian championships, the highest jump in 2012.
Germany’s Robert Harting won the men’s discus Olympic title with a throw of 68.27 metres.
The 27-year-old edged out Ehsan Hadahi, who won Iran’s first ever Olympic medal in athletics with a throw of 68.18m.