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Thomas promise fades on final bend

David Martin
Saturday 28 June 2003 00:00 BST
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Iwan Thomas, the former European champion, finished third in the 400 metres at the Exxon Mobil Bislett Games last night.

The Welshman led early on, but faded coming off the final bend, losing out to Belgium's Cedric Branteghem, who ran a personal best 45.55sec, and Australia's Clinton Hill who crossed the line 0.02sec ahead of Thomas in 46.09.

Yamile Aldama, the London-based Cuban, produced a massive 15.11m triple jump to smash her personal best. She revealed earlier this week she was divorcing her husband, the independent television producer Andrew Dodds who is serving a 15-year jail sentence for drugs trafficking.

Aldama, the 1999 world silver medallist, is unbeaten this year in her four competitions but faces missing the World Championships. She hopes to obtain British citizenship, butis not eligible until next year. Cuba has said unless she lives in her homeland she will never again be chosen to represent them.

Aldama led from the first round, with the Commonwealth silver medallist, Françoise Mbango, of Cameroon, finishing second with a jump of 14.88m and the world champion, Tatyana Lebedeva, of Russia, third with 14.86m.

In the 400m hurdles, Tony Borsumato ran a season's best of 50.87sec, but the British No 2 was beaten into second by the Russian Boris Gorban, who won in 49.95sec.

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