The re-run of the men's 100m final on following day of the schedule was deemed to be written into the athletics history and drew world attention back to the American- less athletics competition at Bangkok Universiade.
Although the sport's world No. 1, the United States, did not send a single athlete to the track and field in Bangkok, the re- run incident, together with some stunning new games records made the front page stories of the six-day competition concluding on Tuesday night.
Simeon Williamson of Britain clocked 10.28 seconds to claim the men's 100m title on Aug. 11 night, overwhelming Chinese sprinter Zhang Peimeng by 0.05 second. However, the Chinese delegation joined hands with Canada and Kazakhstan to immediately file a formal protest, arguing that the gold medalist had an obvious false start.
After reviewing the start record and official video, the Athletics Technical Committee issued a statement early next morning, announcing that a re-run would be held in late afternoon on Aug. 12, due to a timing-device malfunction.
The incident has been described as "a rare case" in athletics competitions of any international multi-sport games by Shen Chunde, a member of Technical Committee of International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
"It is the very first time for me to go through such situation, and this is really a rare case," said Shen, also the head of jury on making the final decision.
Williamson had reportedly committed a false start due to a starting time of 0.099 second, merely 0.001 second exceeding the official line of 0.1 second.
Dramatically, when all the eight sprinters stepped back to the track in heavy rain, the top three stayed at their original place as the previous race even with better time.
The Briton proved himself to be the authentic fastest man at Universiade by reclaiming the title in 10.22, when China's Zhang still finished as the silver medalist 0.08 second behind.
Besides the re-run incident, the rewritten Universiade records also stole the spotlight during the competitions, when Turkish talented runner Halil Akkas broke the 26-year-old games record for men's 3,000m steeplechase.
The skinny Turkish set the new record at eight minutes 20.83 seconds, though he slowed his steps five meters ahead of the line and started cheering to the crowd. The previous record was made by America's John Gregorek in 8:21.26 at the 1981 Bucharest Universiade.
Jessica Augusto also became a new Universiade best holder, when she claimed the women's 5,000m gold in 15 minutes 28.78 seconds, bringing the only athletics title back to her motherland, Portugal.
China, host of the coming 2008 Olympics, maintained its dominance in the walk events, taking all the two gold medals in men's and women's 20km walk apiece.
"It is an acceptable result for us, since we have basically send a team of university students, instead of world-class athletes," said Wu Yuejian, leader of Chinese athletics team.
China also claimed two silver and two bronze medals in the track competitions, which were all taken by male runners. Jiang Qiuyan, the first gold medalist at the 24th Universiade, was the only Chinese female athlete in the top three of the athletics competition.
The athletics powerhouse Russia stayed at the top of medal table with six gold, four silver and six bronze medals, while its neighboring Ukraine finished the runner-up on the standings with 5- 6-4.
Kazakhstan surprisingly ranked the third, overwhelming China, with 4-1-0.
Remarkably, the host Thailand demonstrated her great progress in the track and field competitions at the Universiade by winning the titles in men's 4x100m relay and women's javelin throw, overtaking South Korea and Japan to stand at the ninth in the overall medal standings of athletics.
South Korea successfully grabbed the only gold on the last competition day, when Kim Deok Hyeon cleared 17.02 meters to win the men's triple jump title. Japan finished the 26th place on the table with merely three silver and three bronze medals.
The six-day athletics competition offered 46 gold medals at the 24th Universiade.
Source: Xinhua
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