Unheralded athletes shine at world championships

London, Aug 11 (IANS) The seventh day of competitions at the IAAF London world championships saw unheralded athletes stun big names as United States became the biggest winners with two one-two finishes.

Ramil Guliyev staged the most unexpected win of Thursday night when the Turkish runner raced past the men's 200m finish line ahead of newly crowned 400m champion Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa, reports Xinhua news agency.

Guliyev made a decisive comeback in the final sprint to finish the race at 20.09 seconds, beating Van Niekerk by two hundreds of a second.

Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago also finished at 20.11 and claimed bronze medal on photo finish.

Olympic and world champion Christian Taylor fended off a strong challenge from American compatriot Will Claye to make a successful defence of the triple jump title.

Two-time Olympic champion Taylor, 27, produced a big jump in his third attempt and the 17.68-metre result eventually gave him the third world title.

Claye, 26, had changed lead with Taylor in the first three rounds in the final but the Rio and London Olympic runner-up had to settle for the silver in 17.63. Nelson Evora of Portugal bagged the bronze in 17.19.

Kori Carter clinched a surprise win in the women's 400m hurdles to edge the stars with major titles.

Carter, whose best previous result was a seventh place finish at the 2nd IAAF Continental Cup in 2014, clocked 53.07 seconds to edge compatriot and Rio Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad to the second place in 53.50.

Jamaica's Ristananna Tracey took bronze in 53.74.

Two-time world champion and title defender Zuzana Hejnova of Czech Republic had to settle for the fourth place in 54.20.