Athletics-Lyles runs 100 metres personal best in final Olympic tune-up

By Mitch Phillips

LONDON (Reuters) -Noah Lyles warmed up for his assault on the Olympic 100 metres title in impressive style on Saturday when the American world champion ran a personal best of 9.81 seconds in the final Diamond League meeting before the Paris Games.

Lyles, probably the biggest name in the sport at the moment, delivered on his promises in the final race of the day in front of a sellout crowd of 60,000, easily the largest on the Diamond League circuit, clipping two hundredths off his best.

South African Akani Simbini took second in 9.86 and Botswana's Letsile Tebogo was third in 9.88 as the first five broke 10 seconds.

Lyles has developed into the biggest personality in athletics and, having taken the 100m world title in Budapest last year to add to three, and an Olympic bronze, over the 200m, he is becoming the man to beat in the blue riband event.

"That was fun," said Lyles, who was sluggish out of the blocks but supreme over the second half of the race. "I could have had a better start but the transitions were great and coming away with a PB this has been what I prayed for and what I wanted."

In the women's 200m American Gabby Thomas delivered a late surge to edge past Julien Alfred of St Lucia in a thrilling finish.

Thomas, a bronze medallist in Tokyo and silver winner at the last worlds, clocked 21.82 seconds, carrying Alfred to a personal best of 21.86.

HOME FAVOURITES WIN

Keely Hodgkinson delivered an emphatic statement that she is the woman to beat in the 800m in Paris when she took more than half a second off her own national record with a dominant 1:54.61 victory in a British 1-2-3.

Still only 22, Tokyo silver medallist Hodgkinson is favourite for Olympic gold after Athing Mu failed to qualify following a fall in the U.S. trials.

Hodgkinson was already the only athlete to go under 1.56.00 this year and was joined by compatriot Jemma Reekie (1:55.61), who edged Georgia Bell (1:56.28), both with personal bests, in the second and third fastest times in the world.

Another home favourite stepped up in the men's 400m as Matthew Hudson Smith won in a spectacular 43.74 -- a European record and world lead.

A year ago at this meeting Hudson-Smith left the track in a wheelchair after tearing his Achilles tendon. He recovered to take silver in last year’s world championships and now, as the 12th-fastest man in history, is a real contender to become the first British winner of the event at the Olympics since Eric Liddell 100 years ago in the same city.

Since then, the only European to triumph over one lap was Viktor Markin of the Soviet Union in the 1980 Moscow Games boycotted by the United States.

Jamaica's Nickisha Pryce also looked very impressive in running a world-leading time of 48.57 to win the women’s 400m.

Femke Bol of the Netherlands easily won the women's 400-metre hurdles in 51.30 seconds, cementing her status as another gold-medal contender in Paris.     The 24-year-old world champion dominated from the start, with Shamier Little finishing second in 52.78, a season's best for the U.S. athlete.

In the men’s version, Brazil’s Tokyo bronze medallist and former world champion Alison dos Santos won in 47.18.

Italy's Leonardo Fabbri caused a surprise in the shot put, throwing 22.52 metres to beat Ryan Crouser of the U.S. (22.37).

(Reporting by Mitch Phillips and Helen Reid, editing by Clare Fallon)