Sport

Lawrence races in Japan

By ANTHONY FOSTER, Freelance Writer

OLYMPIC RELAY GOLD medallist Tayna Lawrence will be the only Jamaican in action at today's Athletics Meeting in Yokohama, Japan, a meet at which Maurice Greene and Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin will face-off in a blazing 100m clash.

Lawrence, who teamed with Sherone Simpson, Aleen Bailey and Veronica Campbell to win the women's 4x100m at the recent Olympic Games, will face Asian champion Lyubov Perepelova of Uzbekistan in today's 100m.

Yuliya Nesterenko of Belarus, 100m Olympic champion, pulled out of the meet.

The men's 100m should be exciting as former Olympic champion Greene, who won the US trials but lost to Gatlin in Athens, should have something to prove.

In an interview carried on the BBC website, Gatlin said: "Nobody had stepped up to the plate. It was my time to show that good guys finish first".

The American won the Olympics 100m dash in 9.85, one hundredth of a second outside Canada's Donovan Bailey's Olympic record.

Greene and Gatlin are expected to face Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, Australia's Patrick Johnson, American and American Leonard Scott, who has run 10.01 this season.

Also competing at the meet are China's Liu Xiang, who equaled the world record (12.91) in the Olympic 110m hurdles final. He will face world-rated and 1996 Olympic champion Allen Johnson of the United States.