Merritt, Oliver and Defar shine in Sweden

Recently-crowned world champions LaShawn Merritt, David Oliver and Meseret Defar have continued their fine form with victories in Sweden.

Recently-crowned world champions LaShawn Merritt, David Oliver and Meseret Defar swept to Diamond League victories on Thursday, just four days after the Moscow world championships ended.

In the 400m, Merritt equalled his best performance of the year achieved in the Russian showpiece with victory in 43.74sec.

The win also illustrated again that he is a force to be reckoned with after serving a doping ban between 2009 and 2011.

Fellow American Oliver, the 110m hurdles world champion, also celebrated victory in a time of 13.21sec.

Oliver finished 0.14sec ahead of Russia's Sergey Shubenkov, who was third in Moscow.

Ethiopia's Defar, who took the world 5000m title in Moscow, dominated the 3,000m on Thursday, improving the best time of the season by 11 seconds.

World long jump champion Aleksandr Menkov of Russia took victory with his final attempt of 8.18m.

There were also wins for fellow world champions, Zuzana Hejnova in the women's 400m hurdles, and Russia's Svetlana Shkolina in the high jump thanks to a leap 1.98m.

New Zealand's shot put champion Valerie Adams was a winner with 20.30m while 800m gold medallist in Moscow, Eunice Sum of Kenya was also in cruise control.


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Source: AAP


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