TORONTO, Sporting Alert – World champion David Oliver recovered from a race recall to win the men’s 110m hurdles in record time at the Pan Am Games in the morning session on day 4 on Friday.
After completing the entire 110m at the first time of asking, Oliver turned around to see half the starting lineup motionless down the track.
He then finally received the news that the race had been recalled for a controversial false start.
But after a 45 minutes delay, the world champion returned to set a new Pan American Games record of 13.07 seconds – removing the 2011 previous mark of 13.10, which was set by Cuban Dayron Robles in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Four men directly behind produced personal bests.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Mikel Thomas took the silver medal in a new personal best of 13.17, with the bronze going to Shane Brathwaite of Barbados in a PB of 13.21.
Recording lifetime bests as well were Barbados’ Greggmar Swift (13.28) and Jhoanis Portilla (13.30) of Cuba.
World-leader Pedro Pablo Pichardo continued his positive form in the 2015 season by leaping 17.54m to dominate the men’s Triple Jump event.
The Cuban, who went 17.46m in the third round, extended that mark in the fifth, although he was aided by a slight +2.1 m/s wind.
Bahamian veteran Leevan Sands got going in the fifth round to jump to second place with his season’s best mark of 16.99m – overtaking Cuban Ernesto Reve (16.94) – the bronze medallist.
The other final in the morning session was taken home by Cuba’s Denia Caballero, who sealed the gold medal in the women’s Discus Throw with a 65.39m effort in the third round of the competition.
She beat her countrywoman Yaime Perez (64.99m) and USA’s Gia Lewis-Smallwood (61.26m).
Earlier in the day, USA men and women 4x400m relay teams both qualified for the final, with the likes of Jamaica, Cuba and Bahamas also earning places in the decider.
