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Marion Jones injured; may miss rest of meet

The World Championships seemed over for 100 metres champion Marion Jones after she failed to finish her 200 metres semi-final and had to be stretchered off the track with what appeared an injury to her lower back today.

Jones, 23, stopped running at around the 130 metres mark and fell onto the track, visibly in pain and holding the left side of her lower back. The American was then taken off the track for medical examination.

Jones had come here bidding for an unprecedented four gold medals. She won the 100 metres on Sunday, but had to settle for long jump bronze on Monday. She possibly paid the prize for competing every day so far at the championships which started on Saturday.

Jones is now out of the 200 and it was not known immediately whether she would be able to compete in Sunday's relay.

Her manager Charlie Wells said: ''I am very concerned. It is a back injury. We will decide whether to take her to hospital after examinations by our team medics.''

''I saw what happened. I wish her all the best and believe she will come back as strong as she used to be,'' said the men's 100 metres champion and teammate Maurice Greene.

Britain's Colin Jackson got his second 100 metres hurdles gold after 1993, winning in 13.04 seconds. Anier Garcia of Cuba got the silver in 13.07 and Duane Ross took bronze for the US, who had their world 1999 leader Mark Crear disqualified in the second round and defending champion Allen Johnson injured before the semi-finals.

Early in the day German Skurygin of Russia won the 50 kilometres walk. Skurygin got the lead when Aigars Fadejevs of Latvia was disqualified at around 26 km, and won in 3:44:23 hours.

Ivano Brugnetti of Italy was a distant silver medallist more than three minutes behind the winner, but his 3:47:54 was a personal best. The bronze went to Russian Nikolai Matyukhin in 3:48:18.

''I had no special tactics, I just wanted to see how the race unfolded,'' the winner said. ''The heat did not bother me.''

The most prominent disqualified athlete was the reigning Olympic, World and European champion Robert Korzeniowski at around 35km.

In the fateful 200 metres semis, the 100 metres silver medallist Inger Miller, advanced with 22.17. The second semi-final which featured Jones was won by Merlene Frazer of Jamaica, who also had 22.18 seconds.

Greene also advanced to the final by comfortably winning his heat in 20.10 seconds, but Francis Obikwelu of Nigeria stole the show by winning the second semi-final with a 1999 world best 19.84 seconds ahead of Urbas Marcin, who improved the polish record to 19.98 seconds.

UNI