Bolt misses Johnson mark

Jamaica's Asafa Powell celebrates his 100 meters victory at the IAAF World Challenge Zlata Tretra (Golden Spike) athletic meeting in Ostrava on Thursday. Powell won ahead of his teammates Jerome Clarke and Dexter Lee.Photo: AFP

Jamaica's former 100 metres world record holder Asafa Powell ran the fastest time over the distance this season here on Thursday in a sparkling 9.83 seconds.
The 27-year-old bettered the previous best of 9.86sec run by compatriot and world recordholder Usain Bolt -- who has eclipsed Powell over the 100m in the past two years -- in Daegu, South Korea, earlier this month.
Bolt for his part made a good go of breaking Michael Johnson's world record in the rarely run 300m on the same racecard.
The 23-year-old -- who admitted on Wednesday he was concerned for the safety of his family and friends back in Kingston as 73 people have died since Jamaican police launched an assault for an alleged drug kingpin Christopher 'Dudus' Coke -- timed 30.97sec.
Johnson's record is 30.85sec, which the great American -- whose longstanding 200m world record was obliterated by Bolt in the 2008 Olympic final -- set in March 2000 at altitude in Pretoria.
There was joy for the home support as Czech Petr Frydrych -- coached by world recordholder Jan Zelezny -- set a best in the javelin for the season with a throw of 88.23 metres.
His mark was an improvement on compatriot Vitezslav Vesely's 86.45m which he threw in the Czech city of Olomouc on May 8 and is the second best ever by a Czech javelin thrower, behind Zelezny, whose world record of 98.48m has stood for over 14 years.
Ethiopia's 2009 women's 10,000m world championship silver medallist Meselech Melkamu also set the season's best time in the 10,000m with a time of 31min 04.52sec.