• James sets WL and beats Merritt in Iowa

Olympic champion Kirani James beat LaShawn Merritt on Friday afternoon at the 2016 annual Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa.

The 2012 Olympic champion James showed that his Olympic preparation for the Rio Olympics is going to the right direction as he managed to produce the world leading 44.08 seconds to beat the 2008 Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt by 0.14 seconds. 

Last year the 23-year-old Grenadian Kirani James finished in third place at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, while Merritt placed in second place. 

“It just shows that I’m on a great track to do some great things this year,” James said after Friday’s race. 

Here is men's 400m race video>>

Men's 400m Results Drake Relays 2016

  1 James, Kirani                Nike                     44.08D
  2 Merritt, LaShawn             Nike                     44.22D
  3 Taplin, Bralon               Grenada                  44.92
  4 Verburg, David               United States            45.03
  5 Brown, Chris                 adidas                   45.82
  6 Yousif, Rabah                Great Britain            46.14
  7 Al-Masrahi, Yousef           Nike                     46.38
 -- Santos, Luguelin             Puma                       DNF