Defending champion Usain Bolt eased into Friday’s semi-finals of the 200m at the World Championships in Moscow.The 26-year-old Jamaican, who took the 100m title on Sunday, comfortably won his heat in 20.66 seconds with Briton Delano Williams, 19, second (20.72).
Adam Gemili recorded the fifth quickest time by a Briton in winning his heat in a personal best of 20.17, while James Ellington (20.55) also qualified.
“I think there is a lot more to come,” a delighted Gemili told BBC Sport.
“I knew I was in good form and I just wanted to execute the race.”
Bolt is bidding for his third consecutive 200m world title and seemed to ease off well before the finish line.
“I’m feeling good. I’m not a morning person,” he said. “I’m just trying to do my targets through the rounds and I’ll be all right.”
Williams, the world junior champion from the Turks and Caicos Islands, who was competing in a Great Britain vest for the first time, will link up with Bolt’s training group in the autumn.
He was also encouraged by seeing his fellow teen Gemili’s performance as well as racing against the six-time Olympic champion and world record holder.
“After watching Gemili run a 20.17, we look really, really strong for the future. We’re only 19,” he said.
“I had a bit of a joke with Usain. He’s been motivating me through all of this, so thank you to him.
“I wasn’t really trying to beat him because he would just probably have turned it on. I was just taking it really easy and doing my thing. It’s been great running in a GB vest.”
Bolt’s team-mates Warren Weir, the Olympic bronze medallist from London, Nickel Ashmeade and debutant Jason Livermore all went through as did United States trio Wallace Spearmon, Curtis Mitchell and Isiah Young.
Also on the track, the British quartet of Eilidh Child, Shana Cox, Margaret Adeoye and individual 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu qualified fourth fastest for Saturday’s 4x400m final after winning their heat in 3:25.39.
However, without the injured Perri Shakes-Drayton, who returned to the UK on Friday for treatment on a knee injury, the GB team will face a difficult task to get past the US, Russia and Jamaica in the final to win a medal. – BBC Sport
