Americans fill the podium in men’s 100m to delight of home crowd as Wang Jianan takes surprise long jump gold

It is 39 years since Carl Lewis coasted to global gold at the inaugural World Championships in Helsinki. On that occasion in 1983 he led Calvin Smith and Emmit King to a clean sweep of the medals and on Saturday night in Eugene history was repeated as Fred Kerley, Marvin Bracy and Trayvon Bromell replicated the result by finishing one-two-three.

Lewis was among the crowd at Hayward Field to see the class of 2022 in action. Now aged 61, he struggled to walk through the concourse of the stadium without being stopped for selfies. This night, though, belonged to Kerley, who stormed home in 9.86 (-0.1).

Moments before the race took place, the deafening noise of a flyover of F-15 jets rumbled through the Oregon sky. Then, when Kerley led his American team-mates across the line, the crowd began chanting: “USA! USA! USA!”

As any athletics aficionado knows, you can’t beat a bit of host nation success to raise the roof of a stadium. This was only the third time a clean sweep had been achieved in this event, too, after the US team in 1983 and in Tokyo in 1991. Lewis incidentally also took gold at the Tokyo event 31 years ago in the same time – 9.86 – that Kerley clocked on a slightly overcast night in the Oregon city.

“It felt amazing,” said Kerley, who finished two hundredths of a second ahead of his two team-mates. “I got the work done this time around and the gold medal means more than anything. It’s amazing to do it on home soil with the home crowd behind us. It’s a wonderful blessing to get a clean sweep.”

The 27-year-old has a tremendous range as a sprinter with a 400m PB of 43.64. His 100m best is 9.76 and he ran a sizzling 9.79 in his 100m heat on Friday in Eugene, whereas over 200m he has clocked 19.76.

Kerley also has an amazing background. As a child his father went to jail and his mother took, as he says, “some wrong turns in life”, which means he was brought up from a young age by his Aunt Virginia in Texas and slept in a room shared with 12 children.

The difficult upbringing has made him determined to succeed in life and this was his first global gold in an individual event. Last year in Tokyo he was beaten to the tape in the Olympic final by Marcell Jacobs. But after starting the competition in Eugene, the Italian pulled out of his semi-final, although after an injury-hit season he would have struggled to have lived with the flying Americans on this occasion.

Also struggling were the British athletes. Reece Prescod exited in the first round, whereas Zharnel Hughes made it to the semi-final but finished third behind Kerley and Christian Coleman. Stumbling slightly in the early stages of his race, he was playing catch-up from then onwards and could not get back on terms with the Americans.

Coleman, who won the world title in Doha in 2019 before sitting out an anti-doping ban for whereabouts failures, cut a dejected figure as he finished sixth.

Wang-tastic victory in the long jump

Miltiadis Tentoglou looked to be cruising to long jump victory with a best of 8.32m but the Olympic and world champion from Greece was stunned in the final round when Wang Jianan of China unleashed an 8.36m leap to take gold.

The 25-year-old was ranked only 64^th in the world coming into Eugene and was just ninth best of the qualifiers going into the final but he has a winning record at Hayward Field.

In 2014 he won the world under-20 title here with 8.08m and on Saturday night he held his nerve to improve from 8.03m in round three – a mark that left him outside of the medal zone – to 8.36m.

In third, Simon Ehammer – the Swiss decathlon specialist – jumped 8.16m with Maykel Masso of Cuba being pushed out of the podium places following Wang’s last-gasp effort.

A disappointed Tentoglou said: “I came here for the gold and I couldn’t jump a 45. Nothing worked out for me. Not one good landing in the series.”

Tears for Teare in 1500m heats

US champion Cooper Teare was among the casualties in the men’s 1500m first round as he finished 13^th in his heat due to lack of fitness after having suffered a stress reaction in his tibia in the past month.

Australians Stewart McSweyn (3:34.91) and Olli Hoare (3:36.17) plus Britain’s Josh Kerr (3:38.94) were the heat winners with Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen qualifying comfortably in McSweyn’s heat just in front of Britain’s Jake Wightman.

Reigning world champion Timothy Cheruiyot also eased through by placing fourth in Hoare’s heat. But it was Kerr who attracted most attention.

The Olympic bronze medallist was sporting a sizeable gold-tinted pair of Oakley sunglasses and then after leading his race out in the final 600m he show-boated through the final metres with a big smile on his face. “I’m here to have fun!” he said.

A little showboating from Josh Kerr as he wins his 1500m heat in style at #Oregon22 ? pic.twitter.com/2rJVNRhKqj

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) July 17, 2022