OSAKA, May 10: American sprinter Tim Montgomery was the upset winner of the 100 metres at the Osaka Athletics Grand Prix today and promptly declared himself a future world record holder.

Running with wind assistance, Montgomery was the only one of the seven starters to finish in under 10 seconds, beating fellow Americans Leroy Burrell and Jeff Laynes into second and third respectively.

The brash 22-year-old, who set a personal best of 9.95 seconds, said he believed his best times were still ahead. ``I believe that with the right conditions I can set a world record when the time comes,'' he told reporters. Burrell and Laynes were beaten before the race was half-over as a confident Montgomery flew down the track.

Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks easily won the 200 metres in 19.90 seconds and said the victory was a boost for his confidence so early in the season.

The 29-year-old Namibian, whose best time is 19.68, eased up as he ran home ahead of Americans Kevin Little and Tod Long.

``I'm happy I am running again in the 19.90s. It is good for my confidence as I prepare for the season,'' Fredericks said.

But despite the win, Fredericks said he was still undecided about whether to run in the 100 metres or the 200 in the World Championships in Athens in August.

Daniel Komen put himself in the mood to celebrate his 21st birthday next week with a two-second win over fellow Kenyan Julius Gitahi in the 5,000 metres in a time of 13 minutes 3.51 seconds.

Britain's Diane Modahl had a close win in her opening run of the season when she just eased out Jamaica's Inez Turner in the 800 metres. Modahl clocked 2:02.79 to Turner's 2:03.05.

``I've trained very hard since the winter to run well in the World Championships in August and today's race shows that things are going very well,'' said Modahl.

Triple jump champion and world record holder Inessa Kravets of Ukraine struggled with her form, losing for the second time in two meetings to the Czech Republic's Sarka Kasparova.

Kravets's best jump of 13.33 metres took her into only fifth place and was well short of her world record of 15.50. Kasparova won with a jump of 14.72 metres.

Chryste Gaines, who won a gold medal as a member of the US 4x100 relay team at Atlanta, won the women's 100-meter dash in a mediocre time of 11.22s. World and Olympic javelin throw champion Jan Zelezny, unbeaten since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, came nowhere close to his year-old world record of 98.48 metres, despite a big build-up.

The organisers had installed a hand-written 100-metre marker on the field for the Czech, who threw 94.02 meters in South Africa in March. But he could do no better than 88.24m in third attempt.

American Derrick Adkins, the Olympic and World 400m hurdles champion, beat his archrival Samuel Matete of Zambia by four hundredths of a second in an exhibition race.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.