18 May 2013  

Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford (coach: Dan Pfaff) got his IAAF Diamond League season off to a strong start in Shanghai today, with a third place finish. Rutherford’s third round jump of 8.08m secured him one point in the Diamond Race, as the 26 year old finished behind European Indoor Champion Aleksandr Menkov (8.31m) in an event won by China’s Jinzhe Li, who jumped 8.34m. Rutherford’s fellow Olympic finalist Chris Tomlinson (Rana Reider) finished in ninth place, with a best jump of 7.66m, while J.J Jegede was two places behind in 11th place with 7.58m.

In the men’s high jump, Olympic bronze medallist Robbie Grabarz (Fuzz Ahmed) matched the 2.24m clearance that secured him a fourth place finish in Doha last week. However, three failures at 2.27m left the current IAAF Diamond League champion in fifth place, in an event won by fellow London 2012 bronze medallist Mutaz Essa Barshim, who cleared a meet record of 2.33m to finish ahead of Ukraine’s Bohdan Bondarenko.

All eyes were on Olympic champion Kirani James in the 400m, and the Grenadian didn’t disappoint as he raced to a meeting record of 44.02, seeing off 2008 Olympic champion LaShawn Merrittt (44.60) and Olympic bronze medallist Luguelin Santos (45.11). Britain’s Olympic semi-finalist Conrad Williams (Linford Christie) and European Champion Pavel Maslak were both disqualified for false starts.

For a full list of results from Shanghai, please visit: http://www.diamondleague-shanghai.com/en/Live-StartlistsResults/Overview/

Don’t forget you can watch some of the world’s best athletes in action this summer at the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix – Birmingham (29-30 June), Sainsbury’s British Championships (12-14 July) and the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games (26-28 July). For more information, please click here