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Lashawn Merritt may have been big news in the off-season due to the legal battle surrounding his legitimacy to compete at London 2012 going his way, but the American is also making the headlines with his performances on the track early in his Olympic campaign.

Merritt beat his own world-leading time with 44.19 to suggest he is on form to defend his title in the English capital. Dominican Republic’s Luguelin Santos was his nearest challenger with his national record of 44.88. Just behind Angelo Taylor (44.97) was Britain’s Martyn Rooney, who finished strongly to take his second sub-45 of the year (44.99).

Merritt had been set to have to miss the Olympics because of the IOC’s ruling that stopped athletes who had served a drug ban since the last Games competing at the next, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport declared that rule illegal.

Kenenisa Bekele’s poor performance was the big news of the meeting-ending 3000m. The Ethiopian, who bounced back from a disastrous showing at the Bupa Edinburgh Cross in January with a 27:47 road 10km in Dublin recently, was competing below his best distance and looked out of sorts as he struggled to 7:40.00 and seventh.

At the front, Kenya’s Augustine Choge blazed around a 54.87-second last lap to pull away from world 5000m champion Eliud Kipchoge and Moses Kipsiro and a time of 7:30.42.

In the women’s event, Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot held off Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar to win in a world lead of 8:46.44 after a pedestrian start to the race.

Earlier Britain’s Steph Twell had been the only athlete to go with the pacemaker and had a lead over a quality field of around seven seconds at one stage. However, Twell – who had shown good form with a 15:15 5000m recently – slowed over the last kilometre and dropped to 13th in 9:01.64.

The 100m may have been missing the “big two” of Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake, but the winning time of 9.87 for Justin Gatlin, as he edged out Asafa Powell, showed how great this season could be for this event.

Jamaica’s Powell got away well and led for the most of the race but he was passed in the last 10 metres by the world indoor 60m champion, who produced his quickest time since 2005, the year of his 100m and 200m world titles. Powell clocked 9.88, while Jamaica’s Lerone Clarke equalled his PB with 9.99.

Paul Koech endured a tight battle with compatriot Richard Mateelong before stopping the clock 7:56.58 – the 12th fastest time in history. The 2008 Olympic bronze medallist was just 0.13 clear of Mateelong, who went under eight minutes for the first time.

World 800m record-holder David Rudisha is planning a quiet Olympic build-up and he made the most of a rare planned race to win in 1:43.10. The Kenyan was being pushed unexpectedly by compatriot Job Kinyor with 100m to go, but he pulled clear over the last 50 metres. Kinyor took 1.31 off his best with 1:43.76 for second.

Britain’s Andrew Osagie finished well to win the battle for the minor places and secure a PB of 1:44.64. Continuing his form after his world indoor bronze in March, he sliced 0.72 off his best. Another Brit, Michael Rimmer, enjoyed a great start to his season, finishing fifth with 1:44.86, his best-ever season-opener. In the B race, Brit Mukhtar Mohammed came within a second of the Olympic ‘A’ standard in fourth with 1:46.41.

For someone who is contemplating running the 400m at the Olympics – possibly in conjunction with the 200m – Allyson Felix showed scintillating form to take the 100m against a top field in 10.92. The three-time world 200m champion, who has a 400m best of 49.59, broke her PB from 2008 by 0.01 as she beat 2011 world silver medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown into second by two hundredths.

That Andy Baddeley’s world lead of 3:35.19 was surpassed in the 1500m was no surprise. Thirteen athletes did so, led by Kenya’s Silas Kiplagat in 3:29.63. But the outcome could have been different had Olympic Asbel Kiprop not stumbled going into the home straight for the final time. Kiprop came back well after appearing to be clipped by Kiplagat to clock a PB of 3:29.78, meaning that already this year two athletes more than in 2011 have broken 3:30.

Four years after 19-year-old Pamela Jelimo enjoyed a massive breakthrough season to take Olympic gold and three years after Caster Semenya emerged from nowhere to take the world title, this season has started off with yet another teenager leaping into world-class. Ethiopia’s 19-year-old Fantu Magiso challenged Jelimo closely before the world junior record-holder pulled clear to an impressive early-season time of 1:56.94.

Magiso took 1.27 off her PB with an Ethiopian record 1:57.90. In fifth Emma Jackson became the first Brit to set an Olympic ‘A’ standard this season as she clocked 1:59.37.

In the 400m hurdles, Melaine Walker’s campaign to defend her Olympic title got off to a great start. The Jamaican clocked 54.62 to go top of the world rankings, passing Britain’s Perri Shakes-Drayton, who went off quickly and faded to third in 55.25 – her best-ever season-opener. Kaliese Spencer, the Jamaican who has been fourth at the last two world championships, was second in 54.99.

After recently equalling the British record with 8.35m, Greg Rutherford failed to break eight metres as he placed fourth in the long jump. Russia’s Aleksandr Menkov took the win with 8.22m, while Rutherford’s highlight was 7.98m. He complained the athletes weren’t told they were only having four jumps. Contrary to the official results, his co-record-holder Chris Tomlinson was not competing in Doha.

Russia’s world champion Mariya Abakumova set a world lead in the javelin with 66.86m to overcome the Olympic champion Barbora Spotakova of Czech Republic. Britain’s Goldie Sayers was slightly disappointing with 61.03m for fifth.

Russia’s Anastasiya Savchenko won a low-standard pole vault with just 4.57m. Brits Kate Dennison and Sally Peake were fourth and ninth with 4.50m and 4.20 respectively – an Olympic ‘A’ standard for the former.

Britain’s Samson Oni enjoyed a perfect record in the high jump to 2.27m but his failure at 2.30m left world indoor champion Dimitrios Chondrokoukis of Greece with victory.

Jamaica’s Brigitte Foster-Hylton comfortably won the 100m hurdles from American Kellie Wells in 12.60.
American Walter Dix ran a strong bend and straight to take the 200m in 20.02. Poland’s Piotr Malachowski found 67.53m enough to win the discus, while Belarus’s Nadezhda Ostapchuk set a meeting record of 20.53m. In the triple jump, Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan took the win with 14.33m.

Al Oerter

Winning one Olympic title is an outstanding achievement in itself. But winning four consecutive Olympic golds across a space of 12 years is simply staggering.

American discus thrower Al Oerter did exactly that. Just weeks after turning 20, Oerter made his Olympic debut at the 1956 Melbourne Games. Up against world record-holder Fortune Gordien, Oerter surprised his US team-mate to take gold with a PB and Olympic record of 56.36.

But the following year Oerter’s career almost came to an abrupt end when he was involved in a car crash. He made a great recovery and made it back in time to defend his title at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Once again he was up against a world record-holder, this time fellow Rink Babka, and once again Oerter came out on top.

Babka led for the first four rounds, before passing on some advice to Oerter ahead of his fifth throw. The words of wisdom did the trick and Oerter sent the disc flying out to 59.18m – just 73cm short of Babka’s world record. It was another lifetime best and an improvement on the Olympic record he set four years prior.

Another American, Jay Silvester, beat Oerter to the accolade of becoming the first man to break 60 metres, but in 1962 Oerter became the first man to break 200 feet when he set his first of four world records in the event with 61.10m.

By the time of the next Olympics in 1964, Oerter had extended his world record to 62.94m. Despite suffering from injuries to his neck and ribs, such was his dominance in the event – especially at the Olympics – Oerter was still considered the favourite. He duly delivered and continued his streak of Olympic records, winning with 61.00m.

Oerter was 32 years old when it came time again to defend his Olympic title in 1968. Earlier that year Silvester had broken the world record with 66.54m, but Oerter’s competitive record at the Olympics was unmatched, making for a mouth-watering head-to-head in the discus at the Mexico City Games.

But that clash never materialised as Silvester finished down in fifth place. Oerter, meanwhile, once again struck gold – an unprecedented fourth consecutive title – and again bettered the Olympic record with his 64.78m throw.

Oerter retired at the end of that season, but made an incredible return 11 years later in an attempt to compete at the 1980 Olympics. Upon returning to the sport, Oerter produced the best throws of his career, culminating in a 69.46m lifetime best at the age of 43. But his return did not work out as planned and he finished an agonising fourth at the 1980 US Trials, missing out on making the team for the Games.

In those later years of his career, Oerter reportedly threw an unofficial 74.67m in training – farther than the current world record.

While in his late sixties, Oerter, who had struggled with high blood pressure all of his life, became terminally ill with cardiovascular disease and passed away in October 2007.

Greatest Olympic throwers

The other athletes who received votes from readers of Athletics Weekly.

Jan Zelezny
The Czech javelin thrower came close to matching Oerter’s record of four consecutive Olympic golds. After taking the silver in 1988, Zelezny went on to win gold in 1992, 1996 and 2000. His world record of 98.48m, set in 1996, still stands today.

Yuriy Sedykh
Winner of the Olympic hammer title in 1976 and 1980, the latter with a world record, the Soviet thrower would have been heavily favoured to win the 1984 title too had it not been for the boycott of the Los Angeles Games. Two years later he set the current world record of 86.74m when winning European gold and he followed it two years later with Olympic silver.

Parry O’Brien
While Oerter dominated the discus in the Fifties and Sixties, fellow American O’Brien was the leading force in the shot. He won gold at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics, following it with silver at the 1960 Games. Creator of the glide technique, O’Brien set 17 world records in the event.

Jürgen Schult
Holder of the longest-standing current men’s world record with 74.08m, German discus thrower Schult won Olympic gold in 1988 and silver in 1992. Although he never came close to replicating his world record, he was very consistent when it mattered, and between 1983 and 2000 he finished in the top eight in all 14 major championship finals he contested.

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» Click here to read the other athletes profiled in our ‘Greatest Olympic athletes’ countdown.

» All of these athletes and more are featured in AW‘s bookazine, The Greatest Olympic Athletes, available now for just £9.99.

» You can also pre-order our next special publication – The Greatest Show On Earth – our in-depth preview to the London 2012 Olympics.

Just moments before a steady downpour of rain began in the Olympic Stadium on the final day of the BUCS Championships, world indoor finalist Andy Pozzi posted not only the best performance of the weekend, but arguably the greatest performance in the history of the British Universities Championships.

The European junior silver medallist had already bettered the 110m hurdles championship record in the heats with a PB and Olympic A qualifier of 13.52, following it with 13.72 in the semi-finals – also inside the previous championship record.

But in today’s final he obliterated his lifetime best with a storming run of 13.35 (+1.3m/s) to go to sixth on the UK all-time list.

Not only did it smash Colin Jackson’s UK age-19 best of 13.44, he also broke Tomasz Ścigaczewski’s European age-19 best of 13.40.

“I’m really pleased with that,” said Pozzi. “The last couple of hurdles wasn’t so good, but everything else was spot-on.

“It’s a very fast track, which makes it feel as though the hurdles are a lot closer because you’re getting to them a lot quicker, so you have to exercise an element of control,” he added.

Pozzi made a huge breakthrough indoors this year, reducing his 60m hurdles PB to 7.56 and finishing fourth at the World Indoor Championships. Part of the high-achieving hurdles group trained by Malcolm Arnold, Pozzi has continued to improve since then.

“I wouldn’t say I was surprised, but I wouldn’t have thought that I could keep pushing on at the same level,” he said.

Further championship records have tumbled on the final two days of competition at the Olympic Stadium. In the 5000m, Charlotte Purdue improved on the mark she set in the heats by 11 seconds to rewrite the record figures again with 15:44.01.

In the guest events, Jack Green – a training partner of Pozzi – followed up his 400m hurdles win from Saturday with victory in the 400m with a big PB of 46.05. Training partner Eilidh Child also achieved the same double in the women’s events, adding a 52.75 400m victory to her hurdles win.

Adding to the all-round success of Malcolm Arnold-coached athletes, Lawrence Clarke set a PB and Olympic qualifier of 13.50 in the 110m hurdles guest race.

17-year-old Jessica Judd front-ran her way to an impressive 800m win in a PB of 2:02.50, while Laura Weightman decimated the 3000m field on the final lap to win with a PB of 9:02.62.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Kelly Sotherton went to the Multistars combined events competition in Desenzano del Garda, Italy, from different ends of the spectrum, but seeking the same goal – Olympic qualification.

At just 19 years old, 2009 world youth heptathlon champion Johnson-Thompson has boundless potential and was set for a big improvement on her previous best. 35-year-old Sotherton, meanwhile, was making a return to combined events after a four-year hiatus, having made a temporary switch to the 400m, and was hoping to just do enough to achieve the Olympic ‘A’ standard of 6150.

Having torrential downpours to contend with, both their campaigns ended in some sort of disappointment, but Johnson-Thompson could at least take some comfort in her big PB of 6007 points, smashing the national junior record of 5910 set seven years ago by 2009 world champion Jessica Ennis.

Sotherton, meanwhile, can draw few positives from her experience after she pulled up injured during the 200m, the final event of the first day, having performed below her best in the first three events. The former Commonwealth champion had been battling an injury over the past few months but had hoped to be in good enough form to complete a heptathlon.

Johnson-Thompson enjoyed a superb first day of competition as she set three PBs in the first four events. She ran a lifetime best of 13.68 in the 100m hurdles, followed by 1.81m in the high jump – the only slight disappointment as she cleared 1.88m just two months ago – but set further PBs of 11.75m in the shot and 23.78 in the 200m. Despite being one of the youngest in the field, her day-one score of 3662 gave her the overnight lead.

Before disaster struck in the 200m, Sotherton, the bronze medallist at the 2004 Olympics and 2007 World Championships, began with 13.96 in the 100m hurdles – her slowest since 2003 – and followed it with 1.72m in the high jump, 16cm below her best, and 12.98m in the shot, more than a metre-and-a-half off her PB.

The weather on day two was even worse and ultimately scuppered Johnson-Thompson’s attempt to achieve the A standard. She leapt 6.15m in the long jump, some 29cm below her PB, and despite the heavy downpour she followed it with a 37.17m throw in the javelin and a 2:18.89 run over 800m. It brought her points tally to 6007 – a 220-point improvement on her previous best – to finish third behind Sofia Ifadidou of Greece (6109) and Blandine Maisonnier of France (6082).

Johnson-Thompson’s British team-mates performed solidly. Louise Wood, boosted by a 13.24 PB in the 100m hurdles, finished 11th with a score of 5443 – just 41 points shy of her wind-legal PB. Phylis Agbo was 13th (5365) and junior Katy Marchant, a training partner of Ennis, was 18th with 5144.

In the men’s decathlon competition, former world and Olympic bronze medallist Dmitriy Karpov of Kazakhstan was a comfortable winner with 8172 – his best score for four years. Britain’s Ashley Bryant finished second with a UK-leading score of 7689, falling short of the Olympic B standard of 7950. John Lane set a PB of 7399 in fifth, while Commonwealth bronze medallist Martin Brockman withdrew from the competition with three events remaining.

Numerous championship records were broken, while stadium records were of course rewritten several times within each round of every event. Some of the better performances though came in the guest races, assembled by UKA to provide some of the country’s top athletes with valuable experience of competing in the stadium.

But there were notable performances in the main BUCS competition too. Former world junior champion Harry Aikines-Aryeetey won the 100m in 10.42 from rising sprint star Danny Talbot, who had clocked a season’s best of 10.37 in the heats.

That stadium record lasted just 24 hours though, as World Championships representative James Ellington cruised to a swift 10.30 victory in the guest 100m on Saturday night.

The very first winner within the Olympic Stadium was Loughborough’s Justine Kinney, who won the first heat of the first event, the women’s 400m hurdles.

Meanwhile, the first championship record to tumble came in the women’s 5000m heats, where Charlotte Purdue smashed training partner Steph Twell’s mark with a time of 15:55.12.

Izzy Jeffs broke the championship record of UK record-holder Goldie Sayers in the qualifying round of the women’s javelin, throwing 53.93m. She followed it up the following day with victory in the final with 53.26m.

Birmingham’s Pippa Woolven unleashed a fierce dash down the final straight to take the women’s 2000m steeplechase with a championship best of 6:36.60.

UK record-holder Lawrence Okoye made a guest appearance in the discus qualifying, throwing 63.54m. Fellow UK record-holder Holly Bleasdale was not quite so successful in the pole vault. Both she and Kate Dennison cleared 4.35m, but the latter won on countback.

The guest 400m hurdles races were won by European under-23 champion Jack Green (50.00) and Commonwealth silver medallist Eilidh Child (57.31), landing a neat double for Malcolm Arnold’s elite hurdles group.

Up-and-coming junior Sophie Papps beat a quality field in the women’s 100m to establish a stadium record of 11.61, while world indoor finalist Robbie Grabarz came out on top in the high jump with 2.26m. David Bishop continued his rapid progress with a breakthrough over 3000m, winning in 7:56.37.

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» The BUCS Championships continue through Sunday and Monday. Next week’s Athletics Weekly will carry full coverage.

World champions Usian Bolt and Yohan Blake were met with kinder weather than their last race at the same venue three weeks ago, and the Jamaican duo responded well to the conditions at the Jamaica Invite in Kingston, winning their respective races with world-leading times.

Unsurprisingly, the pair did not go head-to-head. Bolt ran the 100m while his training partner contested the longer sprint. Bolt, the world record-holder over both sprint distances, clocked 9.82 (1.8m/s) in the 100m to record his fastest ever season début performance in that event.

He finished two metres ahead of former world bronze medallist Michael Frater (10.00) and Commonwealth champion Lerone Clarke (10.03).

Not to be outdone, Blake also posted his quickest ever opener in the 200m, winning comfortably with 19.91 (1.1m/s). World finalist Nickel Ashmeade was a couple of strides behind with 20.09, and Warren Weir set a PB of 20.21 to complete the Jamaican 1-2-3 in both men’s sprints. Former world 100m record-holder Asafa Powell had been due to compete in the 200m, but withdrew earlier in the week after picking up a niggling injury.

Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu was also making her season début in her specialist event, the 400m, where she was up against Sanya Richards-Ross. The American record-holder was heavily favoured to win, having already taken world indoor gold this year, as well as posting a world-leading time last month.

But Richards-Ross was beaten by Jamaica’s former world bronze medallist Novlene Williams-Mills, who bettered the American’s world-leading time with 49.99. Richards-Ross was second with a season’s best of 50.11, while Ohuruogu finished a promising third in 50.93 – her fastest ever season-opening performance.

The Briton is known for having a slow start to her season, usually opening with times in the range of 51-52 seconds. But her sub-51 clocking, just one place behind Richards-Ross, confirms the reports that Ohuruogu has been flying in training, also evidenced by her memorable leg in the 4x400m relay at the World Indoors.

Carmelita Jeter was an impressive winner of the women’s 100m in 10.81 (1.0m/s), followed by world bronze medallist Kelly-Ann Baptiste (10.86) and Olympic silver medallist Kerron Stewart (10.98).

Jamaican record-holder Brigitte Foster-Hylton struggled with injury in the year following her 2009 World Championships victory. She sat out the whole of 2010 and returned in 2011 but didn’t make much of an impression, exiting the World Championships at the semi-final stage. At 37, the odds were stacked against her to ever get back to her best.

But in Kingston she was one of the biggest surprises, winning the 100m hurdles in 12.51 (1.5m/s), equalling the time she won with at the 2009 World Championships. She defeated Canada’s Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, who herself was also making a comeback, and in her second race post-childbirth clocked a very respectable 12.64. British record-holder Tiffany Porter was just a whisker behind with 12.65.

World University Games champion Hansle Parchment set a lifetime best of 13.19 (1.0m/s) to win the 110m hurdles, narrowly defeating USA’s Ronnie Ash (13.20). World bronze medallist Andy Turner was fourth in a season’s best of 13.50.

In just his third competition of the year, Greg Rutherford has equalled the British long jump record at a low-key competition in San Diego.

Competing at the OTC-Pre-Olympic Series II meeting, Rutherford won with a world-leading leap of 8.35m, benefiting from a perfect tailwind of 2.0m/s.

It equals the mark set last year in Paris by domestic arch-rival Chris Tomlinson.

In recent years the pair have exchanged British records. Tomlinson set his first record back in 2002 with 8.27m, then added two centimetres to the record in 2007.

At the 2009 World Championships, Rutherford broke the record by one centimetre with his 8.30m leap in the qualifying round. It lasted two years, with Tomlinson getting back his record last year.

Rutherford, who will return to the UK today from his warm-weather training stint in the US, opened his season two weeks ago at the Mt SAC Relays, leaping 8.05m. He improved to 8.20m one week later at the first OTC Pre Olympic Series meeting. His jump yesterday in San Diego puts him at the top of this year’s world lists.

Rutherford tweeted after the competition: “Not a bad day. PB in San Diego with a cheeky +2.0! Feels good with a larger crowd as well.

“The OTC in San Diego is my new fav place to jump,” he added. “Actually just behind Paris and Crystal Palace.”