KEY POINTS:
On an evening of sparkling performances on the track in Nagai Stadium, no one shone brighter than Allyson Felix in the final of the women's 200m.
Still a teenager when she sped to the title in Helsinki two years ago, the 21-year-old Californian with the slender build - she was called "Chicken Legs" in high school because of her spindly limbs - came of age in the home straight on Friday night with the kind of turbo-charged acceleration last seen in her event by Florence Griffith-Joyner in full flow.
In fact, even when Flo-Jo blasted to her freakish 21.34s world record at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, she failed to put as much distance between herself and her nominal rivals as Felix.
After rounding the turn in the slipstream of the 100m champion, Veronica Campbell of Jamaica, Felix went into overdrive with a vengeance, the young American crossing the line in 21.81s, the fastest time in the women's 200m for eight years.
Campbell was 0.53s down, in 22.34s - that, for the record, is the biggest winning margin in a global women's 200m final since Fanny Blankers-Koen beat Britain's Audrey Williamson by 0.8s en route to one of her four gold medals at the London Olympics in 1948.
All of which could leave Britain's 400m gold medal winner Christine Ohuruogu and Nicola Sanders, the British team-mate who took the one-lap silver medal behind her on Wednesday, with serious food for thought on the road to Beijing.
Having achieved one lifetime goal in breaking the 22s barrier in her specialist event, Felix is now giving serious consideration to having a crack at the 400m as well as the 200m at next year's Olympics.
"It's a definite possibility," she said. "I want to add an event in Beijing. I'm not quite sure which way to go: either the 400m or the 100m. I won't make that decision until this season's fully finished."
Felix, who happens to be coached by Bob Kersee, the brother-in-law of the late Griffith-Joyner, has already clocked 49.70s for the 400m this season, only 0.09s slower than Ohuruogu's winning time on Wednesday. She did that in Stockholm last month in taking the prized scalp of Sanya Richards, the fellow American who tops the world rankings for the 400m this year with 49.52s.
Richards, the world athlete of the year in 2006, qualified only for the 200m here - finishing a bitterly disappointed fifth in 22.70s in Friday night's final - but intends to return to the quarter-mile at the Weltklasse meeting in Zurich next Friday, in which she will have Ohuruogu firmly in her sights.
"I don't know what happened to me in the 200 tonight but I'll be ready to run a great 400 in Zurich," she said.
It was a night, though, when the sparkle came from those in stars and stripes - the peerless Jeremy Wariner finishing 0.51s ahead of his compatriot LaShawn Merritt in retaining his 400m crown in 43.45s.
Only Michael Johnson and Butch Reynolds have run faster.
Wariner retained his world title in style, the Texan powering off the final bend with Merritt taking silver in 43.96s and Angelo Taylor completing an all-American podium with a time of 44.32s. The US became the first nation to sweep the men's 400m - and Wariner has not lost a championship race since 2004.
"I knew I would run a fast time," Wariner said. "Sweep means a lot to me and US athletics. I'm fulfilling step by step all my goals.
"Next year it is to defend my Olympic title. The world record [Michael Johnson's 43.18s], it will come when it should come."
Then there was a taste of events to come in Beijing next year, with a sizeable Chinese contingent roaring Liu Xang to an equally stunning victory in the 110m hurdles final.
Drawn out in lane nine, the world record holder had to come from behind, clattering all but one of the barriers as he snatched gold from Terrence Trammell of the US in 12.95s.
His compatriot David Payne, who arrived in Osaka as a late replacement for injured US record holder Dominique Arnold on Tuesday, won a fairytale bronze in 13.02s.
"I can't believe it," he said. "I only learned I could run some 45 hours ago. I'm so excited."
Even if the time was outside his world mark of 12.88s, the evening belonged to Liu, who has progressed from bronze to silver to gold over the past three world championships.
The Asian champion, lacking the raw power of his bigger rivals, trailed the Americans out of the blocks but soon got into the flow of his smooth rhythm in the outside lane.
While he was gently grazing hurdles in the middle section of the race, Trammell and Payne were knocking them flat and by the time the trio were sprinting for the line, Liu had time to turn his head and check he had won.
When he realised he had, a huge beam spread across his face and looked up at a group of his compatriots and pointed both fingers at his face.
"Everything went smoothly tonight, my opponent is myself," he added.
Liu said his next event would be at the IAAF meeting in his native Shanghai at the end of September as he moves ever closer to the highly anticipated defence of his Olympic title in Beijing next August.
There was also a novel sight to savour in Nagai Stadium: that of Alberto Juantorena (to quote the late Ron Pickering) opening his legs and showing his class. Not that the class shown by the 30-year-old Cuban Alberto Juantorena Jnr in the decathlon 400m was anything like as high as that which took his father to his memorable Olympic 400m-800m double in Montreal in 1976.
Watched by his 56-year-old father, a council member of the International Association of Athletics Federations, Alberto Jnr finished third in his heat in 50.37s - 6.11s slower than his old man's winning 400m time in Montreal.
Still, Alberto Snr had only the two events to contest. His son has 10. After the first five of them on Friday, he was standing 12th in the decathlon rankings.
- INDEPENDENT
