Wind-assisted Lemaitre clocks 9.94sec in French 100m

ANGERS, France (AFP) –

French Christophe Lemaitre (R) crosses the finish line. Lemaitre retained his French national 100m title with a wind-assisted 9.94sec victory on Saturday to rediscover his form in perfect time for the European Championships and Olympic Games.

Christophe Lemaitre retained his French national 100m title with a wind-assisted 9.94sec victory on Saturday to rediscover his form in perfect time for the European Championships and Olympic Games.

With the wind recorded at +2.6 m/s, the 22-year-old Lemaitre, seen as Europe’s biggest hope to break Jamaican and US sprinting hegemony, beat home Jimmy Vicaut, who clocked 10.05sec, with Emmanuel Biron taking third (10.10).

“I’m happy,” Lemaitre said. “I came in well under 10 seconds. But the wind was too strong, it’s a shame.

“But 9.94sec is a good time, even if I felt a little heavy over the first part of the race.”

Lemaitre, who set a French national record of 9.92sec last year, will defend his two golds (100m, 4x100m) in the June 27-July 1 European champs at Helsinki, before going on to the July 27-August 12 London Games aiming for the podium.

The Frenchman finished fourth in the 100m final at the World Championships in Daegu last summer, but came home with a bronze from the 200m.

“I wasn’t at 100 percent in the first part of the race. Afterwards, once I’d got going, it was good,” he said.

But Lemaitre added that his run-out was better than his most recent Diamond League outing last month when he finished third (10.04) behind Jamaican duo Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell.

“It’s a little better than Rome already. I have to work now,” he said.

“If there hadn’t been any wind, it would put me right back up (among the top sprinters in the world).

“But saying that, I’m still very pleased with the time. It gives me confidence. It proves that it’s finally possible to go under 10sec on a regular basis. Now I need to do it in more stable conditions.”

Lemaitre denied he had had any doubts in himself after struggling to find the form that catapulted him to Europe’s top sprinter last season.

“I haven’t had too many doubts because I knew that in Rome, with a better start, it was possible to have run under 10sec,” he said.

“I didn’t doubt to not be able to do it, but it was the fact of actually doing what I thought I could. This puts me back on track and proves that in the European champs, I can’t target anything else than retaining my titles and that at the Olympics I can do something good.

“In the form I’m in, it means I can also go quick in the 200m here on Sunday. Under 20sec? Why not? But I’m saying 20.10sec.”