World silver medallist Tyson Gay overhauled former world record holder Asafa Powell to win the men's 100 metres at the World Athletics Final. Gay edged Powell on the line to win by two-hundredths of a second in 9.88 seconds. The women's 200 metres went to world champion Allyson Felix of the US who defeated compatriot Sanya Richards, the world 400 metres title holder, by the narrowest of margins, both officially timing 22.29 seconds. Olympic champion Yelena Isinbayeva, who failed to clear a height in Berlin, was unable to break her own world pole vault record of 5.06 metres set in Zurich last month, but won the event with a vault of 4.8 metres. The Russian said she thought she could still better the record this year with meetings to come in Shanghai and Daegu, South Korea. Ethiopians took the first two places in the women's 5000 metres as Meseret Defar, the 2004 Olympic 5000 metre gold medallist beat the current Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba. Reigning world champion Brittney Reese of the United States measured 7.08 metres to win the women's long jump while Cuba's Arnie David Girat took the men's triple jump with a 17.45 metre effort. World champion Phillips Idowu could only finish in fourth place. American Olympic and world champion LaShawn Merritt strode home in the men's 400 metres, beating Chris Brown of the Bahamas by 0.56 seconds to finish in 44.93 seconds. Kenya's Olympic 1500 metres gold medallist Nancy Langat, who could only finish seventh at the World Championships in Berlin last month, timed 4 min 13.62 seconds to beat Britain's Hannah England into second place. The men's 3,000 metres was one of the highlights as Ethiopia's 5,000 world champion Kenenisa Bekele and Bernard Lagat of the United States reprised their epic Berlin battle. Lagat, who took silver behind Bekele in Berlin, attacked on the final straight but in another exciting sprint finish Bekele held on to win in 8:03.79.
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