Chinese sprinter Su clocks 9.98s in Zhaoqing

BEIJING -- After a 32-month of waiting, Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian dipped under the 10-second barrier once again as he clocked 9.98 seconds to win the men's 100-meter race at an invitational event in the southern Chinese city of Zhaoqing on Saturday.

The 31-year-old Su, who jointly holds the men's 100m Asian record of 9.91s, clocked 10.16s to lead the preliminaries in the morning. He went on to shrug off a 0.9m/s headwind and wrapped up the convincing victory in 9.98s in the all-Chinese event.

Su's national teammate Xie Zhenye, who owns a personal best of 9.97s, finished second in 10.16s, followed by Liang Jinsheng at 10.38s.

"To be honest, I did not run very well today. The starting-off was good but in the latter part my body was a little tense," said Su. "But the result is satisfactory. After all it has been quite a long time since my last sub-10s performance."

The last time Su registered a sub-10s mark was in August 2018, when he clocked 9.92s to claim the gold medal at the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Su's winning mark is the fifth fastest result on the World Athletics toplist of the season. It has been his second 100m race of the year as he also clocked 10.05s last month in building up for the Tokyo Olympic Games in the summer.