Powell runs strongly in Commonwealth Games warm-up

MELBOURNE, Mar 9 (Reuters) World record holder Asafa Powell shrugged off lingering injury concerns with a strong run at an IAAF world tour event in Melbourne today, his final race before the Commonwealth Games. Jamaican Powell eased down over the final stages of his 100 metres race but still won comfortably in 10.29 seconds after a convincing performance running into a headwind on a cold Melbourne night.

Powell beat Darrell Brown, of Trinidad and Tobago, into second with a time of 10.34.

Powell, the headline act at the March 15-26 Commonwealth Games, earlier also anchored his Jamaican team strongly to win the men's 4x100m relay.

His performance in his first race in eight months went a long way to allaying concerns about his groin injury.

Powell had not raced since he pulled up short at a London grand prix event last July, a month after he set the new world mark of 9.77 seconds in Athens, lowering Tim Montgomery's three-year-old record by 0.01. Powell's compatriot Sheri-Ann Brooks won the women's 100m in 11.63 seconds.

Local hopes suffered a big blow when Jana Pittman was ruled out with a hamstring strain. Pittman's English 400m hurdles rival Nicola Sanders had earlier also withdrawn.

Pittman, who won the event at the 2003 world championships, has also been hampered by a lack of preparation after a knee injury.

The Commonwealth champion's coach and fiance Chris Rawlinson, England's 400m hurdles Commonwealth champion, made the decision to withdraw Pittman but said her Games campaign was not under threat.

''If she had needed a race we would have taken the chance and run her today but there's no point, everything's going really well,'' Rawlinson said.

Australia gained some solace from the performance of walker Nathan Deakes, who underlined his Games favouritism for the 20km and 50km walk by setting a new Commonwealth record of 18 minutes 45.19 seconds in the 5,000m walk.

The Melbourne meeting was the first on the IAAF's new slimmed-down world tour of 24 events, replacing last year's 34-event programme.

REUTERS AY RN1727