JAMAICAN Usain Bolt outstripped American rival Justin Gatlin to win his fourth consecutive world 200-meter title Thursday to add to the 100-meter gold he won at the weekend.

    Bolt clocked 19.55 seconds to extend his domination of global sprinting since taking the world by storm at the 2008 Beijing Olympics at the same Bird’s Nest Stadium.

    Gatlin, who has served two doping bans, clocked 19.74 seconds, with South African Anaso Jobodwana taking bronze with a national record of 19.87 seconds.

    The victory meant Bolt has now remarkably won 11 of the last 12 individual Olympic and world sprint titles since shooting to fame at the Beijing Games, his only blip coming after a false start in the 100 meters at the 2011 worlds in Daegu.

    Earlier Thursday, Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk summoned up the second-longest hammer throw of all time to dominate the world championship final and win the title for a second time.

    The 30-year-old is the only woman to throw the hammer beyond the 80-meter mark and she did it twice at the Bird’s Nest Stadium, winning gold with her fourth effort of 80.85 meters.

    The only throw better in the history of the event was the 81.08 Wlodarczyk notched to improve her own world record at the start of this month.

    China’s Zhang Wenxiu delighted the local crowd by claiming silver with her best throw of the season (76.33), while 21-year-old Frenchwoman Alexandra Tavernier took bronze with her best effort of 74.02 — nearly seven meters behind the champion.

    On Wednesday, Kenya made history at the world championships when javelin thrower Julius Yego won the first gold medal in a field event for a country renowned as a cradle of distance running.

    Yego’s victory came in dramatic fashion, with a huge throw of 92.72 meters — the longest in 14 years.

    Shortly afterward, Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi added another gold medal to Kenya’s haul when she sprinted past Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi and Germany’s Gesa Felicitas Krause to win the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase.

    Unlike other kids growing up in Kenya, Yego wasn’t much of a runner. Instead, he liked to throw sticks and stones around the playground. Then he watched a new sport on television during the 2004 Athens Olympics and found his calling.

    “I could throw far using the stick so I knew I could be a very good javelin thrower,” he said. “I was born with it.”

    In January 2012, he went to train in Finland, the country that has produced the world’s most successful javelin throwers. Under the tutelage of coach Petteri Piironen, Yego improved dramatically and came into the championships with a personal best of 91.39 meters, the world-leading mark of the year.

    Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed of Egypt, who is also coached by Piironen, finished second with a throw of 88.99, taking home the first medal for Egypt at a world championships. Tero Pitkamaki of Finland won the bronze.

    (SD-Agencies)