Powell turns up heat after easing to Palace triumph

(PA)

A warm summer's night in south London may not equate to the suffocating conditions athletes will experience in Beijing three weeks from now, but Asafa Powell made the most of the balmy conditions to indicate that it would be rash indeed for anyone to write off his chances of winning the Olympic 100m title.

Powell won with smooth ease in a time of 9.94 seconds, into a 0.5 metres per second headwind. How he might have fared against his two main putative rivals, fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt and the double world champion from the United States, Tyson Gay, remained a matter of conjecture. But you had to believe it would have been a close race.

Bolt, who surpassed Powell's world record earlier this year, runs in today's 200m on the same track, while Gay removed himself from the equation in the wake of Powell's midweek victory over Bolt in the Stockholm meeting.

The American maintained he was withdrawing as a precaution to protect the hamstring problem which caused him to pull up in the 200m at the US Olympic trials. Well, maybe.

By the time the final was held the glaring sunshine under which spectators had basked and enjoyed picnics before events got underway had died away to something very much less than a Jamaican norm.

But Powell appeared in his element as he emerged from the crowd over the final 10 metres of a race where Trinidad & Tobago's Marc Burns was second in 9.97 and Britain's only qualifier, Craig Pickering, was last in 10.21.

"It was great winning today," said Powell, whose start to the season was delayed by a pulled pectoral muscle, and further disrupted by a recent groin injury. "I felt very confident in the heats and the final. The race did not quite go as expected but felt easy. There's a bit more work to do and everything should be fine for Beijing.

"I don't see any one athlete as being my main competitor. The way I am running at the moment I feel I am in the best shape I have been in."

Powell had established himself as the swiftest qualifier in 10.06 in heats that lacked Britain's fastest Olympic qualifier Simeon Williamson. The Londoner, who ran 10.03 at the Olympic trials to finish behind the man who will not be going to Beijing, Dwain Chambers, had scratched earlier in the week because of a minor leg injury.

Of the remaining domestic sprinters, only Pickering, third-placed finisher in the trials, managed to force his way into last night's final, going through as the last qualifier after finishing fifth in the opening heat in a time of 10.25.

The second heat, won by Trinidad & Tobago's Richard Thompson in 10.11, saw the third individual choice for Britain, Tyrone Edgar, drop out of contention after finishing fifth in 10.30, a place behind world junior champion Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, who recorded 10.27.

Pickering was happy to accentuate the positive after his opening run. "I was really pleased with the start," he said. "That was the best part of the race. I always like to race when I am not the focus and I definitely was not that today. I was sixth on paper. I ran 10.25 and beat a 9.89 man, so it's not bad."

For Athens sprint relay gold medallist Marlon Devonish, however, the omens were not so good after he finished in the heats a place behind Edgar in 10.31. "I am still not right," said the man who is selected for the 200m and sprint relay in Beijing. "I am still not feeling good at all."