US sprinters fire relay warning, Olympic swimmers plunge into Seine

AFP | Paris

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US sprinters laid down an Olympic relay gauntlet to their rivals yesterday ahead of a possible Noah Lyles s p r i n t d o u b l e, while marathon swimmers took the plunge into the River Seine. The American men and women both powered through their 4x100m relay heats to warn off any rivals aiming to challenge their dominance.

Stung by having to settle for 100m silver, Sha’Carri Richardson ran her anchor leg in an eye-popping 9.99sec to see the women home while the men could afford to leave out Lyles and still cruise to victory. Olympic 100m silver medallist Richardson and newly-crowned 200m champion Gabby Thomas steered the United States into the final of the women’s 4x100m relay after winning their heat in 41.94 seconds yesterday. Melissa Jefferson, who won bronze in the 100m in Paris, ran the opening leg, with Twanisha Terry taking the baton down the far straight.

Terry’s handover to Thomas wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, however, handing the advantage to Germany. Thomas’ pass to anchor-leg Richardson was clean. The 100m silver medallist then powered past Rebekka Haase to push the German quartet into second in 42.15. Switzerland took the third automatic qualifying spot.

Britain won the second semi-final in 42.03sec ahead of France and Jamaica, the reigning Olympic champions but missing big guns such as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah. Canada and the Netherlands sealed the two fastest non-automatic qualifying places for the final scheduled on Friday.

‘Do it for him’

Earlier yesterday, 24 women dived into the River Seine, which was deemed clean enough for competition, for the 10-kilometre swim through the heart of the city. Sharon van Rouwendaal from the Netherlands won a gruelling battle against her competitors and a strong current in 2hr 3min 34sec, devoting her gold to the memory of her pet dog, Rio, who died in May.

“Swimming is my everything, but so was he... My father said: ‘swim one more time and do it for him. And that’s what I did’,” she added. Water quality in the Seine has been in the spotlight during the Olympics despite a 1.4-billion-euro ($1.5-billion) effort to improve sewerage and water treatment.

Organisers have been forced to scrap several training sessions and postpone the men’s triathlon after assessing the water to be too dirty to swim in.