T&T quartermiler Renny Quow earned a second victory in the Mel Sheppard 600-yard run when he opened his 2011 season at the 104th Millrose 
Games at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Friday night. Quow, a bronze medal winner at the World Track and Field Championship in Berlin ran one minute, 11.82 seconds on the distinctive 160-yard (146.3m) track crammed onto the arena floor as the 2011 IAAF Indoor Permit season began.
It was the second win for Quow in the race, named after a four-time Olympic gold medallist from the early 20th century after he got his first win 2009. Second was USA’s Karjuan Williams in 1:12.23 while his countryman, Jamaal Torrance (1;12.77) was third. Outdoor 400m Hurdles ace Bershawn Jackson (Batman), a winner in 2007, 2008 and last year withdrew. Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown dominated the women’s 60m with a world-leading 7.11. Campbell-Brown was just behind USA’s Lauryn Williams out of the blocks but overtook Williams’ explosive start by halfway and cruised to the finish. Williams took second in 7.22.
Nesta Carter won the men’s event in a world-leading 6.52 seconds, holding off a late-race charge from Mike Rodgers and Trell Kimmons, who ran 6.56 and 6.57 respectively. Jamaica’s Vonette Dixon won with a surprise 8.00 victory in the 60m Hurdles over Danielle Carruthers and former World Champion Perdita Felicien. Meanwhile USA’s Bernard Lagat found Ethiopian Deresse Mekonnen too much to handle in the Wanamaker Mile.
Lagat, an eight-time winner of the capstone event at New York’s historic marquee indoor fixture, played a close game of cat and mouse with the World Indoor Champion but found his own famous closing speed insufficient to get by Mekonnen as the crowd came to their feet to see the two milers dueling in the closing laps. Lagat was undefeated in the Wanamaker since 2005 and also won in 2001 and 2003.