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WORLD SPORT

Powell impresses in Games warm-up

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Powell's run will boost his confidence ahead of the Commonwealth Games

MELBOURNE, Australia -- World record holder Asafa Powell shrugged off injury concerns with a strong run at an IAAF world tour event in Melbourne, his final race before the Commonwealth Games.

Jamaican Powell eased down over the final stages of his 100 meters race but still won comfortably in 10.29 seconds into a headwind.

Powell beat Darrell Brown of Trinidad and Tobago into second with a time of 10.34 and was happy with his confidence-building run.

"I need the confidence but I'm the world record holder and I had to prove that I am," said Powell.

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.

"I was quite nervous all day, I haven't been on the track for almost a year," Powell said. "I'm feeling pretty good. But you can look for something different at the Commonwealth Games because this is my first event," he said.

Powell had not raced since he pulled up 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 blow when Jana Pittman was ruled out with a tight hamstring. Pittman's English 400m hurdles rival Nicola Sanders had earlier also withdrawn through injury.

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 400 metres 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 set 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.

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