Bolt in; Gatlin and Blake out of 200m final

Usain Bolt remains on course for an Olympic ‘triple-triple’ after advancing to the final of the 200m on Wednesday evening in Rio, Brazil. Competing in semi-final two, the Jamaican won in 19.78 seconds to edge out Canada’s Andre De Grasse, who clocked 19.80.

Bolt is looking to make a clean sweep of the 100m, 200m and 4x100m again this year, after winning all three events in 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London. He has already won the 100m in Rio.

LeShawn Merritt of the USA won semi-final one in 19.94 seconds with France’s Christophe Lemaitre second in 20.01 seconds. In the third semi-final, Alonso Edward of Panama won in 20.07 seconds, followed by Churandy Martina of the Netherlands in 20.10 seconds.

Justin Gatlin (20.13 seconds) of the USA and Jamaica’s Yohan Blake (20.37 seconds) finished third and fifth respectively in this semi-final, both failing to make the cut for Thursday’s final.

By virtue of having the best times among the others, Adam Gemili (20.08 seconds) of Great Britain and Ramil Guliyev (20.09 seconds) of Turkey made it through to the final.