Leon Reid finishes in sixth place in Diamond League meeting in Rabat
Ireland’s Leon Reid has finished sixth in the men’s 200m at the Diamond League meeting in Rabat.
His time of 20.88 seconds was two-tenths down on his season’s best time of 20.68 in last month’s European Champion Clubs Cup at Castellón.
At the front of the race, Canadian Olympic silver-medallist Andre de Grasse of Canada overturned European and world champion Ramil Guliyev to win in 20.19 seconds compared to the Turkish sprinter’s 20.28.
Ecuador’s Àlex Quiñonez was third.
Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba beat her own mark in setting a new world lead in the women’s 1500m, pipping European 5000m champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands in a classic finish at the end of a tremendously fast race across the board.
Dibaba and Hassan both dipped under the former’s previous world lead time of 3:56.28, with Dibaba winning this time in 3:55.47, edging out Hassan by 0.46 seconds in a tremendous sprint finish that also brought the Rabat meeting record.
Remarkably, Hassan’s time of 3:55.93 was one of three national records set in the race, followed by Morocco’s Rababe Arafi in fourth (3:58.84) and Uganda’s Winnie Nanyondo in sixth (3:59.56).
And it was almost a fourth - Gabriela Debues-Stafford’s new lifetime best of 4:00.46 was 0.19 seconds outside Lynn Williams’ Canadian record from 1985.
Getnet Wale set a new world lead in the men’s 3000m steeplechase of 8:06.01, a new Ethiopian record.
Outside of the Diamond League, a new Irish under-23 record was set in the women’s 4x100m at Geneva’s annual impressive meeting.
Off the back of last year’s World U20 silver medal in Finland, Molly Scott, Ciara Neville and Gina Akpe-Moses teamed up on this occasion with Sharlene Mawdsley to clock a new mark of 44.54 seconds in finishing third in their final.
It breaks the old mark of 45.59 from 2013 that had belonged to Steffi Creaner, Sarah Murray, Louise Holmes and Catherine MacManus.
As they travel to the European U23 Championships in Gavle aiming to be even faster, one Euro U20s prospect for Boras set a new national age-group record at the same meeting.
Belfast’s Davicia Patterson broke her own Irish junior (U20) 400m record as she set a new time of 52.57 seconds in winning the B race.
Only four Irish women have ever run faster – Irish record holder Joanne Cuddihy (50.73), Karen Shinkins (51.07), Phil Healy (52.08) and Jennifer Carey (52.29).
