Jamaican Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herra won the 200 m title at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, completing the double after winning the 100 m gold.
Thompson-Herra, 30, broke the Commonwealth Games record for that distance, finishing the race in 22.02 seconds.
“I tried to break the Games record in the 100m but it didn’t work, so I told myself I had to do it in the 200m,” she said after the win.
“I am so happy to win the gold on this day which marks Jamaican Independence Day,” she said.
Thompson Hira won gold in the 100m and 200m at the Tokyo Olympics last summer, as she did in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
But she settled for bronze in the 100m at the World Championships in Athletics in Eugene last month, behind fellow countrymen Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the reigning champion, and Sherika Jackson, silver medalist, to finish seventh in the 200m. .
Thompson-Herra, who won the 100m heat at Wednesday’s Games, faced a tough paper challenge in the 200m final despite the absence of two of her compatriots. But she finished half a second ahead of Nigerian Favor Ofili, while Namibian Christine Mboma, Olympic silver medalist, finished third.
Source: El Iktisad