Day three of the World Championships in Moscow didn’t have the excitement of the previous two days as many of the events had been heavily affected by doping suspensions or injuries before the start of the meet. 

David Oliver re-took the world’s top spot in the 110 Hurdles with his first international championship in a season leading 13.00.  US champion Ryan Wilson was second in 13.13.  Sergey Shubenkov of Russia was third in 13.24 after the 23 year-old made his first international final.  ’11 World champion Jason Richardson has battled injury this year and ran 13.27 for fourth.  ’12 Olympic champion Aries Merritt has battled injury all year and still finished sixth in 13.31. 

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce  won her second World Championship gold medal (along with ’09) to go with her two consecutive Olympic Golds by running a world best 10.71 into a 0.3 m/s headwind.  Murielle Ahoure of won her first international medal with a second place finish in 10.93 and defending champion Carmelita Jeter beat her training mate, English Gardner, 10.94 to 10.97.   Americans Alexandria Anderson was seventh in 11.10 and Octavious Freeman was eighth in 11.16.

New Zealand’s Valerie Adams won her fourth straight world championship to go along with her two Olympic titles.  She had the top four throws with a best of 20.88m, Christina Schwanitz of Germany threw a pr 20.41m for her first international medal and Li Gong was third, 19.95m (her second WC bronze), beating American Michelle Carter by one centimeter.  

For the first time that Christine Ohuruogu and Amantle Montsho have been at the top of their game they battled in the final of the women’s 400 meters.  The timers had to break down the photo to determine the winner as Ohuruogu won as both were timed in 49.41 (British national record for Ohuruogu).  Antonina Krivoshapka matched her bronze medal from 2009 by running 49.78.  US champion Natasha Hastings was fifth in 50.30 and Francena McCorory was sixth in 50.68.

Pawel Fajdek became the second Pole to win an international hammer title since 2001 (joining Szymon Ziolkowski who won the world title in 2001 and Olympic title in 2000) by throwing a world leading 81.97m.  Olympic champion Krisztian Pars of Hungary finished second with a best throw of 80.30m and Lukas Melich of Czech Republic gets the bronze with a throw of 79.36m.

Young German Raphael Holdzappe gets his first international championship in the pole vault (5.89m) to go with last year’s Olympic silver.  Olympic champion Renaud Levillenie is kept from his first world championship (two bronzes) because Holdzappe clears the winning height on his first attempt and it took Renaud three attempts.  German teammaat Bjorn Otto beats ’07 world champion Brad Walker because of fewer total misses as both vaulters clear 5.82 on their first attempt.

On the first day of the heptathlon 30 year-old Ganna Melnichenko of the Ukraine took the lead with 3912 points ahead of 21 year-old Dafne Schippers of the Netherlands at 3837 points and Sharon Day of the US with 3836 points and ex-Duck Brianne Theisen Eaton of Canada at 3810 points.   World leader, defending world champion and two-time Olympic bronze medallist Tatyana Chernova of Russia did not compete and ’12 Olympic champion and ’11 World Silver medallist Jessica Ennis has been injured most of the year and did not attempt to win her second world title.