FLO­RENCE – Trinidad & To­ba­go sprint­er Jereem Richards was the on­ly Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean com­peti­tor to make it on­to the podi­um dur­ing the World Ath­let­ics Di­a­mond League meet yes­ter­day in Italy.

The 29-year-old world 200 me­tres bronze medal­list fin­ished strong­ly to grab sec­ond at the Gold­en Gala in the Olympic Sta­di­um with a time of 20.28 sec­onds be­hind teenage sprint­ing sen­sa­tion Erriy­on Knighton, whose win­ning 19.89 was a sea­son-best for the Amer­i­can.

Run­ning out of lane six, Richards got out of the blocks nice­ly, but he ap­peared not to be mak­ing head­way at the halfway mark be­fore he ac­cel­er­at­ed through the fi­nal 70 me­tres, and bowed three-hun­dredths of a sec­ond be­fore Aaron Brown of Cana­da at the line.

Lat­er, for­mer world cham­pi­on Yohan Blake of Ja­maica was sev­enth in the men’s 100 with a sea­son’s best time of 10.15.

Fred Ker­ley of the Unit­ed States con­tin­ued to set the stan­dard with a time of 9.93 and stayed un­beat­en this sea­son, Fer­di­nand Omanyala of Kenya was sec­ond in 10.05, and Amer­i­can Trayvon Brom­mel was third in 10.09.

Ear­li­er, Rushell Clay­ton of Ja­maica fad­ed bad­ly and clocked 54.71 for sixth af­ter show­ing ear­ly in the women’s 400 hur­dles, and she was the on­ly run­ner that failed to fin­ish in a sea­son-best or per­son­al time.

World sil­ver medal­list Femke Bol of the Nether­lands slammed the field when she shat­tered the 13-year-old meet record of Amer­i­can Lashin­da De­mus and set a world-lead­ing time for the year of 52.43 sec­onds, shav­ing 0.69 off her mark four days ago in Oordegem, Bel­gium.

Shami­er Lit­tle of the Unit­ed States, com­ing off a win last week in Ra­bat, copped sec­ond with a sea­son’s best 53.38, and her com­pa­tri­ot An­na Hall took third with a per­son­al best of 54.42.

In the women’s flat 400, Aliyah Abrams of Guyana clocked 51.31 for sixth and Can­dice MacLeod of Ja­maica ran 52.09 for sev­enth.

Na­talia Kacz­marek of Poland fin­ished in a sea­son’s best 50.41 to win ahead of Lieke Klaver of the Nether­lands with her sea­son’s best of 50.75, and Lyn­na Ir­by-Jack­son of the Unit­ed States was third in 50.84.

The high­light of the meet came in the fi­nal race when Faith Kipye­gon of Kenya cap­tured the world record she had been hunt­ing, win­ning the women’s 1500 in a stun­ning three min­utes, 49.11 sec­onds.

The two-time Olympic and two-time world cham­pi­on was al­ready the sec­ond-fastest women’s 1500m run­ner of all time, but Kipye­gon blew apart the record, be­com­ing the first woman to break 3:50 in the dis­ci­pline and tak­ing al­most a sec­ond off the pre­vi­ous record.

(CMC)