Injury healed, Jones back to winning ways

Injury healed, Jones back to winning ways
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Osaka, May 13: American sprint stars Marion Jones and Maurice Greene made a winning start to their build-up to the Sydney Olympics with victories at the IAAF Japan Grand Prix athletic meet on Saturday.

In their first sprint races of the season, world champion Jones clocked 10.84 seconds for an easy victory in the women's 100 metres beating Bahamas rivals Chandra Sturrup and Savatheda Fynes. But her first long jump was not good enough for Jones, casting a shadow over her bid to win five gold medals in the Sydney Olympics.

Jones managed to leap only 6.27 metres to finish fourth and then quickly left the stadium for her hotel. Greene, the first man to become world 100/200 champion, timed 10.20 in the semi-finals and went on to win the men's 100m with a new meet record of 9.91 seconds.

``I was hoping to have a good performance here in Osaka. The 100m was good, but I was disappointed with my long jump. There are several things I need to improve,'' said Jones.

``As I said yesterday, the injury is healed, so let's get it off the record. It's just that my runway wasn't flowing today,'' added the American, denying she was affected by her back injury.

Jones already made a triumphant return to competition by clocking 49.59 in the 400m, better than any time recorded by a woman during the 1999 season, in California a month ago after back spasms caused her to collapse in agony in the World Championships 200m semi-finals at Seville last August.

The 24-year-old sprinter then anchored a US quartet to a world record of 1:27.46 in the women's 4x200m relay at Philadelphia two weeks ago.

``I have to be satisfied with it,'' Greene said of his time. Because it is my first race of the year and I believe I ran a very good technical race and I'm very happy with my performance today.''

Greene defeated Obadele Thompson of Barbados, who timed 10.11, and world silver medallist Bruny Surin of Canada, who came in 10.24.

``Technically, I believe I had a good race, I started well, I had good dry phase and I accelerated and just relaxed until the finish... that allowed me to run the time I did.''

But Greene said he is not thinking about the Olympics because he has to qualify for Sydney in the US Olympic trials in June.

``The Olympics is the most important thing in the world but first of all I have to look at our Olympic trials, so I'm focusing more importantly on our Olympic trials first and then I will start thinking about the Olympics,'' added the American.

The women's long jump was won by Guan Yingnan of China with a mark of 6.70m, ahead of Lacena Golding of Jamaica with 6.46 and American Dawn Burrell with 6.29.

Jones' husband, world champion CJ Hunter, easily won the men's shot put throwing 21.33m, beating Gheorghe Guset of Romania and Miroslav Menc of the Czech Republic.

Koji Murofushi became the first Japanese to throw over 80m as he won the men's hammer throw with a new National record of 80.23m to beat Heinz Weis of Germany.