Christophe Lemaitre the next big thing in sprinting
Last night’s men’s 100 metres final in the European Championships in Barcelona saw the latest strides in the development of French sprinter Christophe Lemaitre.
The first white runner to break the 10-second barrier added to his list of honours when he broke from the pack to beat Dwain Chambers and co and secure himself the gold medal with a time of 10.107seconds. All this at the young age of 20 bodes well for a promising future for the Frenchman.
Lemaitre came to world attention following his 9.98 seconds time on July 9th, coupled with his gold in Spain last night, he looks set to become a real force on the circuit. It wasn’t outstandingly quick, but Lemaitre proved he can dig deep when under pressure and he beat much more experienced athletes in the process.
It was actually a very average start from the Frenchman who came slowly out the blocks, it wasn’t too bad, but he was only just keeping pace until he burst through with a very strong finish with about 20 metres to go. The British contenders, Chambers and Mark Lewis-Francis, went out in front from the start pulling away from the opposition, but with about 50 metres gone the gap had narrowed.
Chambers was still leading as the finish line drew closer, but took his foot of the gas with about 15 metres to go allowing a narrow finish over the line with second to fifth separated by 1/1000th of a second. Lewis-Francis took silver and Lemaitre’s fellow countryman Martial Mbandjock nicked bronze.
It was Lemaitre’s day though; his gold medal is the latest step up in terms of the direction his career is going. As everyone knows though the best sprinters in the world are mainly outside of Europe and it will be the Stockholm Diamond League on August 6th where we will see him compete against the best.
As impressive as Lemaitre is he still has to improve to catch up with the likes of Tyson g*y, Asafa Powell and of course the speed king that is Usain Bolt.
As a comparison Bolt took the win Paris two weeks ago with a 9.84 second victory over g*y. The Jamaican of course holds the world record with that scarcely believable 9.58 and it’s widely agreed he can run faster. Powell will be joining up in Sweden as well as the big three compete against each other for the first time since the 2008 Olympics and Lemaitre is widely expected to get an invite to join the fun.
All these top-level competitors are a lot further down the line than the Frenchman though but he does have age on his side with seven years on Powell and g*y and three on Bolt, but he still has a very big gap close down.
Lemaitre is something of an anomaly, these days sprinters seem to be huge, long legs, big arms but the Annecy-born Lemaitre is a waif by comparison. His time last night of 10.10 is nowhere near enough to worry the big boys but he does have the ability to bring that sub-10.
If the develops as an athlete and improves his starts he could become the next big thing in sprinting.
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