Star athletes shine at World Championships

London, Aug 12: World champions Dafine Schippers and Pawel Fajdek defended their titles on Day 8 of the competition at the London world championships here.

Dutch woman Schippers clocked a season best 22.05 seconds to retain the women's 200m title and Poland's Fajdek clinched his third consecutive world hammer throw title with an attempt of 79.81 meters on Friday night, reports Xinhua news agency.

Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Cote d'Ivoire took the 200m silver following her second finish in the 100m with a time of 22.08 seconds. Shaunae Miller-Uibo was third with 22.15.

For American Brittney Reese, it was the chance to regain the women's long jump title and she did not waste it, winning in 7.02m after she bagged the gold medal three times in a row between 2009 and 2013.

Darya Klishina, one of the Russian athletes competing as an authorised neutral athlete, took silver in the women's long jump with her season's best attempt of 7 meters while another American Tianna Bartoletta finished third with 6.97.

In the women's 3,000m steeplechase, Olympic bronze medallist Emma Coburn of the United States cut nearly four seconds off the championships record en route to winning in 9:02.58, beating the previous Championships record of 9:06.57 set by Russia's Yekaterina Volkova back in 2007.

The 26-year-old Coburn waited patiently behind world record holder Ruth Jebet of Bahrain and three Kenyan athletes, including defending champion Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi, for most of the race, before charging for the lead together with her teammate Courtney Frerichs in the final lap.

Frerichs took the silver medal in 9:03.77, which is a personal best for the 24-year-old. And the bronze medal went to Jepkemoi with a clocking of 9:04.03.

Jepkemoi's compatriot Celliphine Chepteek Chespol clocked a world under-20 record of 9:15.04 to finish sixth.