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U.S. Women Grow in Front of World

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Times Staff Writer

Lauryn Williams ran the perfect race that had eluded her all season. Chaunte Howard refused to think of herself as the person who finished 28th in the Athens Olympic high jump competition.

Williams and Howard, both 21, came of age athletically on a rainy night at the world championships by blending resolve, talent and impeccable timing in perfect measure.

Williams, who said she thought “I’d let America down” by finishing second in the 100-meter dash at Athens, burst from the blocks on Monday and leaned hungrily at the tape to win her first world title, timing 10.93 seconds. Howard, a former Riverside North High standout, soared a personal-best 6 feet 6 1/2 inches to finish second in the high jump, her first medal in a major competition but probably not her last.

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“It’s a big difference from 28th to second,” said Howard, who is about to start her fourth year at Georgia Tech.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet. The greatest thing is that it was a tremendous field out there.”

UCLA alumna Amy Acuff was eighth in the high jump with a best of 6-2 1/4 .

Williams faced a formidable field led by Athens gold medalist Yulia Nesterenko of Belarus, bronze medalist Veronica Campbell of Jamaica, Christine Arron of France, who ran a 10.96 in Monday’s semifinals, and Chandra Sturrup, who ran a world-leading 10.84 in July at the age of 33. Me’Lisa Barber and Muna Lee, who finished ahead of Williams at the U.S. championships, were in Lanes 2 and 8, respectively.

As a downpour descended on Olympic Stadium, Williams blasted out of Lane 6, a 5-foot-2 dynamo in a red, white and blue bodysuit. Campbell came after her but finished second in 10.95, a blink ahead of Arron’s 10.98. Sturrup and Barber were timed in 11.09.

Williams was stoic until she looked for the results on the video screen. “I’m not going to do any gallivanting around until I see the board,” she said.

When it showed that she’d won, Williams jumped up and down and ran to the stands for an American flag to carry during her victory lap.

“I’m just getting started,” she said. “I’m only 21 still and I’m drinking milk now, so maybe I’ll grow to 5-3.”

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If not in height, she’ll grow in experience.

“She’s very young in the sport,” said Amy Deem, who has continued to work with her since Williams’ graduation a year ago from the Miami. “She’s a work in progress.”

Howard went to Georgia Tech to work with renowned coach Nat Page, and they worked out a plan to get her to the Athens Olympics. Once there, however, she froze.

“Her performance was not good at the Olympic Games, but she learned a lot,” Page said. “She learned you have to do what’s right to jump high and not just jump.”

That was visible on Monday, when Howard vied for gold with crowd favorite Kajsa Bergqvist of Sweden. Bergqvist, who missed the Athens Olympics after tearing an Achilles’ tendon, floated over the bar and didn’t miss until her first try at 6-6 3/4 .

She made it on her second attempt, but Howard needed three tries after knocking the bar down once with her back and again with her foot.

While the competition paused for the first semifinal of the women’s 400, Bergqvist sat motionless as Howard stood up to clap and yell for U.S. teammate Sanya Richards.

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“I’m so proud of her,” said Richards, who won her heat and led the three-woman U.S. contingent into Wednesday’s final. “That motivated me.”

When the high jump resumed, Bergqvist easily cleared a world-leading 6-7 1/2 on her first try. Howard made three solid efforts at matching the 28-year-old Swede and came up smiling after her third miss.

“Honestly, it was just not my day to do it,” said Howard, whose family lives in Riverside. “Eventually I’m going to go to that height and the bar is not going to come down after me.

“It turned out the way it was supposed to. I’ve been training for it, and I really expected everything was going to come together at the right time.”

A lot has come together for her recently. Last week she became engaged to Mario Lowe, a former Florida State triple jumper who proposed on the Georgia Tech track. “My parents don’t know,” she said. “I guess they know now.”

In the 400, Richards (50.05), DeeDee Trotter (50.73) and Monique Henderson (50.73) advanced to Wednesday’s final. Henderson made it on her time, after finishing fourth in a heat that included Athens gold medalist Tonique Williams-Darling of the Bahamas and 2003 world champion Ana Guevara of Mexico.

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“I knew the heat was going to be really fast,” Henderson said. “This has been a long year, but I’m hanging in there.”

Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia won his second successive 10,000-meter title in 27 minutes 8.33 seconds. Countryman Sileshi Sihine was second in 27:08.87, with Kenya’s Moses Mosop third in 27:08.96.

Abdi Abdirahman of the U.S. was 13th in 27:52.01. Olympic marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi, who trains at Mammoth Lakes and Chula Vista, felt tightness in his right quadriceps and dropped out of a race for the first time. He’d felt it on Tuesday but had hoped it would loosen.

“It’s disappointing, but you move on to the next one,” Keflezighi said. “This is obviously the biggest of them all.”

In the men’s 1,500-meter semifinals, Alan Webb avoided being boxed in for a second consecutive time by taking the lead and holding it until Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain passed him with about 300 meters to go. Webb easily moved on, with a time of 3:36.07.

“Nobody thought I was dumb enough to do it twice in a row,” he said. “I just went for it and nobody came with me.... This was my goal all year, to make this final.”

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Docus Inzikuru of Uganda won the women’s steeplechase in its world championships debut, with a time of 9:18.24. Elizabeth Jackson and Carrie Messner of the U.S. were ninth and 15th, respectively.

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