Je­hue Gor­don of T&T won the 400 hur­dles by stun­ning Olympic cham­pi­on Fe­lix Sanchez of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and for­mer world cham­pi­on Ker­ron Clement of the Unit­ed States at the Her­culis meet­ing in Mona­co, yes­ter­day.Gor­don ran a sea­son's best 48.00 sec­onds, just 0.04 shy of the world-lead­ing time set by Olympic run­ner-up Michael Tins­ley at the US tri­als last month. Sanchez and Clement fin­ished, re­spec­tive­ly sixth and sev­enth.Justin Gatlin of the Unit­ed States proved that he will be the tough­est ri­val for Ja­maican sprint­er Us­ain Bolt at the world cham­pi­onships by run­ning 9.94 sec­onds to win the 100m.

Gatlin held off a chal­lenge from fel­low coun­try­man Den­tar­ius Locke, who fin­ished 0.02 sec­onds back. French cham­pi­on Jim­my Vi­caut took third in 9.99.Aman­tle Montsho of Botswana, Vitezslav Vese­ly of the Czech Re­pub­lic, along with Kenyans As­bel Kiprop and Ed­win Cheruiy­ot Soi mean­while set world-lead­ing marks in the 10th leg of the Di­a­mond League cir­cuit.

World cham­pi­on Montsho ran the women's fastest 400 this sea­son in 49.33. Eu­ro­pean cham­pi­on Vese­ly threw 87.68 in the men's javelin. Kiprop clocked 3:27.72 to beat Mo Farah of Britain in the men's 1,500. And Soi ran 12:51.34 in the men's 5,000.In his first com­pe­ti­tion back from a ham­string in­jury, Gatlin had enough pow­er to lead a US team to vic­to­ry in the 400 re­lay with a time of 37.58 be­fore win­ning the 100.

Gatlin was not dis­ap­point­ed by his time, 0.19 sec­ond shy of Amer­i­can sprint­er Tyson Gay's world-lead­ing time.Gay pulled out from the Her­culis meet and the worlds af­ter be­ing no­ti­fied last week by the US An­ti-Dop­ing Agency of a pos­i­tive test for a banned sub­stance.Gatlin is the on­ly sprint­er who has beat­en Bolt this year. The 2004 Olympic cham­pi­on and 2005 world cham­pi­on edged Bolt by 0.01 sec­ond in Rome last month.World cham­pi­on Kiprop en­tered the fi­nal lap of the 1,500 with the lead and broke away in the fi­nal curve.Farah came sec­ond in 3:28.81 to break the Eu­ro­pean record pre­vi­ous­ly held by Spaniard Fer­min Ca­ma­cho since 1997. Britain's 5,000 and 10,000 Olympic cham­pi­on from the Lon­don Games was run­ning his first 1,500 this sea­son to work on his speed ahead of the worlds.

Olympic run­ner-up Leonel Man­zano of the Unit­ed States fin­ished a dis­tant 13th, more than 16 sec­onds off the pace.Montsho beat Stephanie McPher­son by 0.59 sec­ond to take the women's 400 and leapfrog An­ton­i­na Krivoshap­ka for the world-lead­ing time. Fran­ce­na Mc­Coro­ry of the Unit­ed States ran a per­son­al best in 49.96 to fin­ish third.Vese­ly out­classed his ri­vals in the javelin, with Dmitriy Tara­bin of Rus­sia throw­ing 84.33 to fin­ish sec­ond. For­mer Olympic cham­pi­on An­dreas Thork­ild­sen of Nor­way com­plet­ed the podi­um with a 83.71 mark.In the women's 100 hur­dles, Sal­ly Pear­son of Aus­tralia is still short of fit­ness three weeks be­fore the worlds. The Olympic and world cham­pi­on wound up fifth in a race won by Queen Har­ri­son of the Unit­ed States in 12.64. Pear­son had a sea­son ham­pered by a ham­string in­jury, los­ing al­so in Birm­ing­ham, Lau­sanne (Switzer­land) and Sot­teville (France).Briget­ta Bar­rett leaped 2.01 in the women's high jump to beat by three cen­time­ters Olympic cham­pi­on An­na Chichero­va of Rus­sia and two-time world cham­pi­on Blan­ka Vla­sic of Croa­t­ia.The next Di­a­mond League event is the Sains­bury's An­niver­sary Games in Lon­don on Ju­ly 26-27.