NAN­JING – Ja­maica’s Ro­han Wat­son and Bar­ba­dos’ Ju­lian Forde put in work­man­like ef­forts in the men’s 60m fi­nal at the 2025 World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships in Chi­na, on Fri­day, how­ev­er, the pair could on­ly man­age fifth and sev­enth place fin­ish, re­spec­tive­ly.

Wat­son, who en­tered the fi­nal with the fourth-fastest qual­i­fy­ing time from the heats, clocked 6.59 sec­onds in a fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive race.

He fin­ished just be­hind Chi­na’s Zhenye Xie and South Africa’s Akani Sim­bine, the lat­ter claim­ing his first in­di­vid­ual glob­al medal with a bronze-win­ning time of 6.54 sec­onds.

The Bar­ba­di­an Forde, crossed the fin­ish line in 6.64 sec­onds, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the young sprint­er’s ca­reer.

The race was dom­i­nat­ed by Great Britain’s Je­re­mi­ah Azu, the reign­ing Eu­ro­pean cham­pi­on, who blazed to vic­to­ry in 6.49 sec­onds, match­ing his per­son­al best.

Azu held off a strong chal­lenge from Aus­tralia’s Lach­lan Kennedy, who se­cured sil­ver with a time of 6.50 sec­onds.

The race was not with­out dra­ma, as Puer­to Ri­co’s Eloy Ben­itez, one of the pre-race favourites, was forced to with­draw mid­way through the event af­ter pulling up and falling to the track.

CMC