Two-time Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was outshone by fellow Jamaican Tia Clayton at the Doha Diamond League meeting on Friday.
Fraser-Pryce, 38, was competing on the Diamond League circuit for the first time for three years but finished fourth in the 100m as 20-year-old Clayton blasted to victory in a world-leading 10.92sec.
Clayton’s twin sister Tina was second in 11.02sec, Britain’s Amy Hunt finished third in 11.03sec and Fraser-Pryce, in what is likely to be her final season, clocked 11.05sec for fourth.
Fraser-Pryce, who is also a five-time individual world sprint champion, suffered a disappointing Paris Olympics last year, withdrawing from the 100m semi-finals.
Tia Clayton showed she has the potential to become Jamaica’s next sprint queen by reaching the final of that event and finished seventh in the French capital.
The reigning men’s Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo produced a lacklustre performance in the Qatari capital to win his signature event as he was almost caught on the line by American Courtney Lindsey.
Tebogo ran a smooth bend but the 21-year-old from Botswana lacked fluency in the home straight and glanced to his right at Lindsey as he crossed the line in a modest 20.10sec, just one hundredth of a second ahead of the American.
In a high-quality men’s 800m, Tshepiso Masalela chased down Wycliffe Kinyamal to clock 1min 43.11sec, the fastest time in the world this year.
Masalela, another athlete from Botswana, showed he has what it takes to challenge for medals at the world championships in Tokyo in September.
In the women’s 400m, Salwa Eid Naser, the 2024 Olympic silver medallist, eased to victory in 49.83sec as she made a triumphant return to the city where she won the world title in 2019.
The Bahraini athlete’s career was interrupted by a two-year doping ban from 2021 to 2023 but she is approaching her best again.
In an exciting finish to the final event on the track, the women’s 3000m steeplechase, Faith Cherotich of Kenya found the kick to pass Yavi Winfred of Bahrain just metres from the line.
Despite the hot and humid conditions, Cherotich clocked a world-leading 9min 05.08sec, with Winfred just 0.18sec behind.
In the field events, Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra, Olympic champion in 2021 and silver medallist in 2024, produced a personal best of 90.23m in the third round to delight his 9.5 million Instagram followers and the Indian spectators in the crowd.
But Chopra was deprived of victory by Germany’s Julian Weber, who hurled a superb 91.06m on his sixth and final attempt.
Olympic high jump champion Hamish Kerr finished third as he was beaten by the silver medallist from Paris, Shelby McEwen, who cleared 2.26m to the New Zealander’s 2.23m, the same height as second-placed Ryoichi Akamatsu of Japan.
