‘TIME TO TWEAK’

Reigning 100m hurdles world champion Danielle Williams ran a season’s best 12.53 seconds to win at the opening leg of the Wanda Diamond League in Xiamen, China, yesterday.

Williams, who won the short sprint category at Grand Slam Track in Kingston earlier this month, was one of two Jamaican winners at the event as triple jumper Jordan Scott produced a personal best 17.27m (0.9m/s) effort while Shericka Jackson was second in the women’s 200m.

Williams said while it was still early in the season with the World Athletics Championships set for mid-September, she was still making adjustments that she hopes will make her even faster.

“The focus was on the last half of the race, trying to finish strong, I think I did that so I am satisfied,” she said. “It is early in April and the season is over in September, so we are not even halfway into the training cycle. It is definitely a good sign. I have tweaked a lot. The game has changed. I mean, everyone is running really fast, so I have to make some tweaks to get up there. Tweaked the start and tweaked the finish.”

World leader Grace Stark of the USA was second in 12.58 seconds, with South Africa’s Marione Fourie third in a season’s best 12.62 seconds.

Scott, a finalist at the World Indoor Championships last month, said he was “grateful” for the opportunity and made the best of it with the sixth best jump in the world so far, beating his previous best of 17.14m, set earlier this year.

“I am so grateful to come out here and compete against the best of the best,” he said. “Going out there – that was really good. I’m grateful, grateful to be honest. I think it took a little bit of adjusting. I fouled the first two and got the safe one in for the third.”

He said getting a legal mark was a confidence booster.

“Based on how the third one felt, I knew I had a big one in there, so it was more just figuring out the little adjustments that needed to be made,” he said. “Unfortunately, my coaches are not here, so those adjustments had to be made kind of on the fly by myself. I’m very proud of myself for getting it together but I do not think it is all the way there yet. We will look at the film and revisit the film, and figure out what we can do better for next week.”

It was a slow start for most of the men and Scott finished strong to beat China’s Zhu Yaming – 17.03m (1.3m/s) with American Donald Scott placing third at 16.85m (1.2m/s) as the top four jumpers had at least one foul in their first three rounds.

Jackson, who was running the 200m for the first time this year, was pleased.

“I am happy that I finished this race healthily,” she said. “I will have to check with my coach where I can do better next time.”

She placed second in 22.79 seconds (0.4m/s) behind American Anavia Battle, who set a meet record 22.41 seconds to win, outdoing the 22.96 seconds set last year by Australia’s Torrie Lewis, while Jenna Prandini was third in 22.97 seconds.

World Indoor medallist Wayne Pinnock was fifth in the men’s long jump with 8.06m (-0.5m/s) and Tajay Gayle was eighth with 7.90m (-0.3m/s) in the event won by China’s Zhang Mingkun with 8.18m (-0.5m/s).

Hansle Parchment was ninth in the 110m hurdles with 13.49 seconds (0.3m/s) and Rohan Watson ran 10.31 seconds (0.2m/s) in the men’s 100m, also placing ninth.