International Sport Capsules: Bolt gets gold, another record in 200 at worlds

BERLIN — Teeth clenched, Usain Bolt grimaced as he churned toward the finish line, hoping to coax a fraction more out of his 6-foot-5 frame.

The big, yellow numbers flashing another world record time told the Jamaican sprinter he had gotten what he wanted out of the 200 meters Thursday at the world championships.

Beyond the mark of 19.19 seconds, though, was something else — the fact that he is altering his sport.

For the second straight race — five in a row, if his record-breaking runs at the Beijing Olympics are counted — Bolt’s biggest competitor was the clock. He bettered his old world record by a whopping .11 seconds, the same margin he shaved off the 100 four days earlier, when he finished in 9.58.

"I’m on my way to being a legend," Bolt said, without a trace of arrogance.

No debate there.

He is erasing chunks of time from records that normally take years to break. He is beating the so-called competition by body lengths — this time, Alonso Edward of Panama was 0.62 seconds behind — in a sport often decided by photo finishes.

"He’s a gift to this earth," said American sprinter Shawn Crawford, who finished fourth. "He’s a blessing to the track game. ... I’m just waiting for the lights to flash ‘game over,’ ‘cause I felt like I was in a video game."

Bolt can’t be caught, even when he gives away tips. Just before the start of the race, Bolt told good friend Wallace Spearmon to stay close to him on the curve and follow him home.

The American tried.

"Even if I run the best turn of my life, I’m still going to be behind," said Spearmon, who finished with the bronze. "I knew what was in store for the race. I expected it to be at least that fast."

When he saw his record time, Bolt pointed at the display, then stuck out his tongue in his best Michael Jordan impersonation.

"Even us in the field, we think there is going to be something phenomenal from him," Crawford said.

Bolt feeds off the energy from the crowd. The louder they get, the more playful he becomes.

He showed up at the start wearing a T-shirt with a new take on President Kennedy’s famous Cold War quote "Ich bin ein Berliner."

This time, the slogan said, "Ich bin ein Berlino," a reference to the bear mascot of the championships.

The audience ate it up, along with Bolt’s hand gestures and other assorted antics.

Then it was time to go to work in his yam-colored Pumas. He jetted out of the blocks, turned the corner and it was over.

No one was going to catch him once he reached the straightaway.

"I was surprised with myself that I did so well," Bolt said.

After that, came his favorite part — the celebration. He involved just about everyone as he made his way around the track, stopping to sign autographs for kids, mugging for pictures and posing with Berlino, who joined Bolt in the sprinter’s signature bow-and-arrow stance.

Midway around the track, Bolt took off his shoes and carried them.

"I was so tight, I couldn’t even really jog. I was just tired," said Bolt, who celebrates his 23rd birthday Friday.

So how low can Bolt go? Even he has no clue.

"I keep saying anything’s possible as long as you put your mind to it," he said.

Former sprint star Michael Johnson, whose record of 19.32 stood for 12 years before Bolt broke it last year, believes the 19-second barrier might be next.

"He could," Johnson said. "He’s very tall and has an extremely long stride. He’s not the only person in the world that’s 6-foot-5, he’s just the only one that’s 6-5 and that fast."

Before the race, Johnson said he didn’t think Bolt would break the mark. Not today. Not with his top rival, Tyson Gay, on the sideline with a groin injury.

But he also threw in a qualifier.

"Anytime Usain Bolt steps on the track, a world record is possible," Johnson said.

In other finals:

— Trey Hardee won the decathlon, edging Leonel Suarez of Cuba. He joins Americans Dan O’Brien, Tom Pappas and Bryan Clay as decathlon winners at world championships.

— Bolt’s teammate Melaine Walker added the world title to her Olympic gold in the women’s 400 hurdles. Lashinda Demus of the U.S. captured the silver.

— Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados won the 110-meter hurdles in a photo finish. Americans Terrence Trammell and David Payne finished second and third, respectively. Dayron Robles, the Olympic champion from Cuba, hurt his hamstring in the semifinal round.

— Blanka Vlasic of Croatia defended her title in the high jump.

But the big stage belonged to Bolt.

For a warmup act, he comically threw a roundhouse punch at Spearmon and hammed it up for the camera.

For the performance, he blistered the field.

For the finale, he broke another world record.

Not bad theater.

"Insane Bolt," Spearmon said. "That’s what we call him."

Bolt overheard that remark.

"Yo, Spearmon," Bolt yelled from across the room. "Don’t call me insane, man. I heard you called me insane. What’s up with that?"

As a way to describe how Bolt is tearing up the track, there may be no better word.

SAfrican in gender flap gets gold for 800 win

BERLIN — The South African teenager caught up in the gender-test flap bowed her head to receive the gold medal for winning the 800-meter win at the world championships on Thursday, while officials and family came to her defense.

Caster Semenya won by a huge margin Wednesday in the face of revelations that the world track body asked her to undergo gender testing.

Asked while walking into the medal ceremony how she was feeling, Semenya smiled and said, "Good, man."

Dressed in a yellow and green track suit, Semenya waved to the crowd as she ascended the podium to receive her gold medal. She stood with her hands behind her back and mouthed the words to the South African national anthem.

Her dramatic improvement, muscular build and deep voice sparked speculation about her gender. Her father, grandmother and cousin dismissed speculation she is not a woman.

"She said to me she doesn’t see what the big deal is all about," South Africa team manager Phiwe Mlangeni-Tsholetsane said. "She believes it is God given talent and she will exercise it."

About three weeks ago, the IAAF asked the South African athletics federation to conduct the gender test after Semenya burst onto the scene by posting a world leading time of 1 minute, 56.72 seconds at the African junior championships in Bambous, Mauritius.

Her father, Jacob, told the Sowetan newspaper: "She is my little girl. ... I raised her and I have never doubted her gender. She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times."

Semenya’s paternal grandmother, Maputhi Sekgala, said the controversy "doesn’t bother me that much because I know she’s a woman."

"What can I do when they call her a man, when she’s really not a man? It is God who made her look that way," Sekgala told the South African daily The Times.

South African athletics federation president Leonard Chuene defended the teenager Thursday, and insisted Semenya is facing intense scrutiny because she is African.

"It would not be like that if it were some young girl from Europe," Chuene told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "If it was a white child, she would be sitting somewhere with a psychologist, but this is an African child."

Chuene also said there was no evidence to prove Semenya was doing anything wrong.

"If there was evidence, she would have been stopped," Chuene said. "Where I come from, you’re innocent until proven guilty.

"They’re judging her based on what?" Chuene added. "Who can give me conclusive evidence? I want someone to do that."

Semenya did not attend the medal winners’ news conference after winning by a margin of more than 2 seconds, in 1:55.45. She was replaced at the dais by IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss.

Weiss said the testing was ordered because of "ambiguity, not because we believe she is cheating."

If the tests show that Semenya is not a woman, she would be stripped of her gold medal, Weiss said.

The gender test, which takes weeks to complete, requires a physical medical evaluation, and includes reports from a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and an expert on gender.

"We have to be very scrupulously fair and sensitive about" the issue, IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said Thursday. "It’s all very well people saying she’s a man, she looks like a man — that’s not good enough. You have to be very careful and cautious about that."

Davies added that Semenya has already undergone some of the necessary tests at specialist hospitals in South Africa and Berlin. He said some of the documents in Berlin on Semenya’s case were leaked.

Gender testing used to be mandatory for female athletes at the Olympics, but the screenings were dropped in 1999.

One reason for the change was not all women have standard female chromosomes. In addition, there are cases of people who have ambiguous genitalia or other congenital conditions.

The most common cause of sexual ambiguity is congenital adrenal hyperplasia, an endocrine disorder where the adrenal glands produce abnormally high levels of hormones.

Morris Gilbert, a media consultant for TuksSport, the University of Pretoria’s sports department, said the issue of Semenya’s gender has not been raised since the 18-year-old freshman began attending the school, where she studies sports science.

He attributed her recent success to hard work and rigorous training.

"She trains a lot," Gilbert said. "If you go to the athletics track, you’re sure to find her there. I don’t think she had really good training before she came to the university. She’s from a very poor area."

But Semenya’s former school headmaster said he thought for years that the student was a boy.

"She was always rough and played with the boys. She liked soccer and she wore pants to school. She never wore a dress. It was only in Grade 11 that I realized she’s a girl," Eric Modiba, head of the Nthema Secondary School, told the Beeld newspaper.

Semenya’s family in the village of Fairlie, about 300 miles north of Johannesburg, said she was often teased about her boyish looks.

"That’s how God made her," said Semenya’s cousin, Evelyn Sekgala. "We brought her up in a way that when people start making fun of her, she shouldn’t get upset."

Semenya moved to Fairlie at about age 13 to help care for her grandmother.

Her cousin Evelyn, who also lives with the grandmother, remembers Semenya playing soccer with the village boys, before a teacher got her interested in running.

Evelyn said the family was pleased Semenya took up an interest in sports, and not in drinking and partying like other teenagers.

Her grandmother would give her money to enter races.

"She was mainly interested in running," Evelyn said. "She wanted to further her athletic dream."

While Semenya’s case has attracted a flurry of attention, it’s not the first gender controversy in track and field history.

In 2006, the Asian Games 800 champion, Santhi Soundarajan of India, was stripped of her medal after failing a gender test. Perhaps the most famous case is that of Stella Walsh, also known as Stanislawa Walasiewicz, a Polish athlete who won gold in the 100 at the 1932 Olympics, and was later found to have had ambiguous genitalia.

Column: Another story that sounds too good to be true?

A learning curve this steep is always going to cause suspicion.

A South African teen named Caster Semenya outran her competition in the women’s 800 meters at the World Championships on Wednesday by more than two seconds. Her time of 1 minute, 55.45 seconds clipped more than a second off the 1:56.72 she ran just three weeks ago to win the African Junior Championships — which was more than eight seconds faster than the 2:04.23 Semenya ran last October to win the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games.

But the cloud hovering over those performances has nothing to do with performance-enhancing drugs — at least not yet. It’s about whether the 18-year-old should be allowed to compete against women.

It’s too early to say whether Semenya’s story is one that’s too good to be true. Track and field’s governing body will weigh in with a decision on that soon enough. The shame is that it’s been dirtied up already.

In the days following what should have been a her grand achievement, Semenya has been humiliated and kept under wraps. Her family and countrymen are outraged. Her competitors aren’t certain what to think.

"If none of it’s true, I feel very sorry for her." said Jennifer Meadows of Britain, who took bronze in the 800 meters.

But a moment later, Meadows added, "Nobody else in the world can do that sort of time at the moment. She obviously took the race by storm."

Semenya’s tale begins with a tomboy who always wore pants to school, didn’t mind playing rough, and endured plenty of taunts from the boys she regularly competed against in a poor village 300 miles north of Johannesburg. The head of her secondary school thought Semenya was a boy until Grade 11.

What no one doubted is that once Semenya got serious about running, right about the time she entered college, she was eye-popping fast.

"If you go to the athletics track, you’re sure to find her there," said Morris Gilbert, a media consultant for TuksSport, the University of Pretoria’s sports department. "I don’t think she had really good training before she came to the university."

But devotion, hard work and good training, even if it’s coupled with the onset of athletic maturity, almost never produce results this fast. Semenya’s times so unnerved her competitors that some looked at her muscular build and listened to her deep voice and concluded she wasn’t a woman at all.

"They’re judging her based on what?" said South African athletics federation president Leonard Chuene. "Who can give me conclusive evidence? I want someone to do that."

Therein lies the problem.

Any scientist who’s studied gender issues can tell you biology doesn’t always play by its own rules. The International Olympic Committee dropped mandatory gender exams before the Sydney Games because the standard in place before then — chromosome testing — could be interpreted several ways. In place now is a case-by-case analysis that brings together a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, an internal medicine specialist and gender expert.

But the IAAF, track and field’s governing body, in full accord with IOC policy, will decide Semenya’s case according to whether her "conditions ... accord no advantage over other females."

Got that?

What the rule suggests is that a panel of experts will consider everything from Semenya’s genetic markers to her genitalia and then try to decide whether her times fit the profile of the world’s fastest woman at 800 meters. It’s an educated hunch at best, but at the moment, it’s all they have.

IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss went out of his way to say that testing was ordered because of "ambiguity, not because we believe she is cheating."

But that didn’t pacify Semenya’s national federation, nor the family that raised her as a girl all her life.

"She is a woman and I can repeat that a million times," her father, Jacob, told the Sowetan newspaper.

"It is God who made her look that way," said Semenya’s grandmother, Maputhi Sekgala, who helped raise her.

The IAAF usually initiates gender testing after hearing suspicions from competitors, but the investigations are supposed to be carried out in private. Leaks have already made the process more humiliating than it needed to be. So maybe the only thing we know so far is that the grown-ups in charge could have handled this better.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org

Hardee has last laugh in decathlon win at worlds

BERLIN — Trey Hardee made it through his victory lap — barefoot, no less — then signed autographs and blew kisses to the crowd of nearly 60,000 that stuck around Olympic Stadium to watch the late finish of the decathlon.

Exhausted, Hardee finally laid down on the landing mat under the pole vault, soaking up the warm Berlin night as the world champion in the toughest event at the world championships.

"It’s an emotional, mental and physical battle," Hardee said after 10 events in two days.

Hardee posted personal bests in three of the events and collected 8,790 points for the gold medal, his highest total to date and the best in the world this year.

"That was a goal of mine this week — to smile, and just to have fun," said Hardee, a native of Birmingham, Ala., who resides in Austin, Texas. "You got to look at the big picture, and overall it’s a decathlon personal record.

"I didn’t have fun last year and tried to make it to the point I have fun this year. I’m incredibly happy. Nobody can be more happy than I am now."

Hardee did not finish last year’s Olympic decathlon. But this year he was runner-up in the decathlon in Austria.

"This isn’t as sweet without last year," he said. "And that was unbelievable motivation, to come back."

Hardee raised his personal best by 256 points and became the No. 3 all-time American in the decathlon behind only Dan O’Brien and Bryan Clay. Clay, the Olympic champion, did not compete here because of injury.

"Tonight, I will sleep," Hardee said. "Party time will come when I’m back in Austin, Texas."

Leonel Suarez of Cuba, the Olympic bronze medalist, took the silver with 8,640 points after a fast time in the 1,500-meter race, the final event. He moved past Aleksandr Pogorelov of Russia, who had to settle for the bronze with 8,528 points, a personal best.

"I am very young, so I can try to win the world title in two years," the 21-year-old Suarez said. "After my bronze last year in the Olympics I now improved to silver."

On a sweltering day, the 25-year-old American secured the victory with a huge performance in the javelin, when he improved his personal best in each of the three throws, and a strong pole vault.

His previous personal record was 210 feet, 4 inches.

Already leading after seven events, Hardee first threw 213-11. He followed with a 219-4 and then improved even more in the third and final effort by throwing 223-1.

By the end of the penultimate event in the two-day competition, Hardee had a comfortable lead and could afford to run the 1,500 about six seconds outside his personal best and still win the event.

"I recorded a personal best after the first day and based on those results, we were confident the second would be better," Hardee said.

Hardee, who led after three events, returned to the lead after seven by running the fastest time in the 110-meter hurdles — 13.86 seconds, his fastest of the year. He never dropped from the lead position again.

The American then followed with a throw of 157-7 in the discus, another best of the year.

Hardee cleared 17-¾ in the pole vault, the best of the day. He had no misses at all five heights until 17-4¾. He botched his run-up in the first attempt and could not lift off, running through onto the mat.

He brought the bar down in his second, then consulted with his coach again. In his third effort, Hardee didn’t have enough height and went under the bar.

Then came the javelin, which allowed the American to stay in the lead ahead of the 1,500.

Suarez had the best javelin effort of the day at 246-8, which put him within reach of the silver.

-- Nesha Starcevic

Brathwaite wins men’s 110-meter hurdles at worlds

BERLIN — Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados won the 110-meter hurdles in a photo finish at the world championships.

Brathwaite hit the first hurdle Thursday but ran a clean race the rest of the way, earning gold with a dip at the line to finish in 13.14 seconds.

Terrence Trammell of the United States took silver in 13.15, and American teammate David Payne picked up the bronze.

The finals were missing the event’s two biggest stars. Olympic champion and world-record holder Dayron Robles of Cuba failed to make it into the final, pulling up injured after hitting the first three hurdles in his semifinal heat. Defending world champion Liu Xiang of China is still out with an injury.

Walker wins women’s 400-meter hurdles

BERLIN — Olympic champion Melaine Walker of Jamaica won the gold medal in the women’s 400-meters hurdles at the world championships in the second-fastest time in history.

Walker finished in 52.42 seconds Thursday, distancing herself from Lashinda Demus of the United States, who took the silver in 52.96.

Josanne Lucas of Trinidad and Tobago earned the bronze in 53.20.