World Athletics Championships: 'The field is so wide open' - Dina Asher-Smith reaches 200m final with season's best time

ByHarry Latham Coyle

Updated 20/07/2022 at 08:19 GMT

After finishing fourth in the 100 metres, Asher-Smith continued to show good speed, producing her fastest time of the year so far at the distance at which she is the defending champion. The British sprinter was pipped into second in a fast second semi-final by Tamara Clark of the USA, with two-time Olympic 200 metre champion Elaine Thompson-Herah also progressing.

Dina Asher-Smith clocked a season's best time to reach the final and continue her defence of her 200 metres title at the World Championships in Oregon.

Asher-Smith (21.96 seconds) finished second in a hugely competitive second semi-final, pipped by a single hundredth of a second on the dip by Tamara Clark of the USA, with Elaine Thompson-Herah, a two-time Olympic gold medallist over the distance, also progressing in third.

The trio were three of five athletes to run beneath 22 seconds, with Jamaica's Shericka Jackson the fastest qualifier through to the final with a time of 21.67.

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Jackson and Thompson-Herah had pushed Asher-Smith off the podium in the 100 metres as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce led home an all-Jamaican podium, and the British record holder knows that she faces a tough task if she is to defend her crown over the longer distance.

"I am really happy with that," Asher-Smith told BBC Sport.

"The field is so wide open and the quality is so high. We knew we had to run this very well so I was really happy to get second.

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"I'm happy that we've got a day break so I can rest, recuperate, focus and get ready to go again, just a bit faster."

Jenna Prandini of the USA missed out on the final despite running a time of 22.08, which would have been good enough for silver behind Asher-Smith in Doha at the last Worlds in 2019.

Mujinga Kambundji, who won bronze on that occasion, set a new Swiss record to push Prandini out of a fastest loser spot, while Niger's Aminatou Seyni, who is unable to compete in her preferred 400m event due to World Athletics' "Differences of Sexual Development" rules, also advanced to the final.

Elsewhere in Eugene, Brazil's Alison dos Santos ended Karsten Warholm's hopes of a third successive men's 400m hurdles title, running the third fastest time in history.

Dos Santos led home America's Rai Benjamin and Trevor Bassitt with a championship record 46.29, with Warholm appearing to struggle to hit top gear and finished seventh after an injury-hit build-up to the Worlds.

In the men's 200 metres semi-finals, Noah Lyles qualified fastest with a time of 19.62.

Teenage star and Lyles' compatriot Erriyon Knighton (19.72) won the third semi-final, with Kenneth Bednarek, another American, the third fastest through to the final.

British pair Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Joe Ferguson did not progress.

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