RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake won their heats to advance to the 100m semi-finals, while Nickel Ashmeade copped the second automatic qualification spot in his heat.
Bolt clocked 10.07s ahead of Andrew Fisher, who recently switched from representing Jamaica to running for Bahrain. Blake cruised to 10.10s, ahead of Jax Harvey, who is also a former representative of Jamaica now running for Turkey.
Ashmeade, running out of Lane three in Heat three finished behind the surprise winner from China, Xie Chenye, who ran to a personal best of 10.08s.
A relaxed Ashmeade clocked 10.13.
American Justin Gatlin won Heat two in 10.01s, ahead of Daniel Bailey of Antigua and Barbuda who copped the second automatic qualifying spot in 10.20 seconds. Kemarley Brown, formerly of Jamaica, now representing Bahrain, won his heat in 10.13 seconds. Meanwhile, 21-year-old American Trayvon Brommell also qualified.
The semi-finals get under way tomorrow at 7:00 pm local time.
