LONDON — With Usain Bolt and Elaine Thompson in the 100 meters, it was supposed to be double sprint gold for Jamaica by now. Instead, it’s the United States that leads 2-0 at the world championships.

With a desperate final lunge on Sunday, Tori Bowie dipped at the line to edge Marie-Josee Ta Lou by .01 seconds and win in 10.85.

Once across and off balance, the American sprinter fell onto the track and didn’t have a clue who had won.

“The dive doesn’t feel too good now,” said Bowie, who added gold to her Olympic silver from last year. “I never give up until I am over the line.”

Dafne Schippers, the 2015 world champion in the 200, took bronze in 10.96.

On Saturday, Justin Gatlin won the men’s 100, beating Bolt.

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The stunning reversal of Jamaica’s sprint fortunes was highlighted by the fact that it didn’t have a medalist in the women’s 100 for the first time in 14 years.

There was nothing close about the heptathlon, though, as Nafi Thiam added a world championship gold medal to her Olympic title.

The 22-year-old Belgian already had a huge lead coming into the concluding 800-meter race in the two-day competition. Thiam finished last in the final heat but still had more than enough points to win.

Thiam finished with 6,784 points, 88 more than silver medalist Carolin Schaefer of Germany.

Anouk Vetter of the Netherlands took bronze with 6,636 points.

Thiam won three of the seven events – the high jump, shot put and long jump.

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In the women’s marathon, Amy Cragg finished third to win the first women’s world marathon medal for the United States since Marianne Dickerson placed second in 1983.

Rose Chelimo won the women’s race, pulling away from two-time world champion Edna Kiplagat for a seven-second victory in a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes, 11 seconds.

The real competition was for the silver medal, where Kiplagat barely held off hard-charging Cragg.

A medal for Cragg was very much in limbo, too, with four racers vying for the podium down the stretch.

Cragg finished in 2:27:18.

“I was like, ‘This is the moment I’ll remember – whether or not I pushed to get closer or gave in,'” Cragg said. “It was really painful. I decided to go for it.”

Geoffrey Kirui of Kenya won the men’s marathon by 1:22, finishing in 2:08:27.

Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia won the silver and Alphonce Simbu to Tanzania was third.


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