World 100m record holder Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell-Brown booked their semi-final spots, but the stars of the 100m preliminary round on day one of the National Championships yesterday were Asafa Powell and Kerron Stewart.

The semi-finals and finals will be contested this afternoon.

Powell, who came out of the blocks blazing, clocked 9.90 seconds to win heat two of the men's 100m ahead of Winston Barnes, who recorded a personal best 10.30.

"I am just using this as my practice going into Beijing," Powell said. He continued to downplay a clash with Bolt. When asked about the final showdown, he replied: "Whatever it takes to get to Beijing, I will be there."

Stewart, in heat three of the women's 100m, stormed to victory in 10.99 seconds to beat Shelly-Ann Fraser, who had a personal best 11.02, and Sherone Simpson (11.11).

Earlier, Bolt, who ran in heat one, took victory in a comfortable 10.19 seconds.

"The goal was to come out and work on a couple of things and that's what I did," Bolt said after his heat.

comfortable time

"I am comfortable with the time. It feels good," Bolt said of the run. "The aim is just to qualify for Beijing, so I am just taking it round by round."

Campbell-Brown's victory came in heat one, 11.28 seconds, which put her ahead of Nickeisha Anderson (11.33).

Nester Carter (10.54), who finished second in heat four behind Jesse Saunders (10.48); Michael Frater (10.20); Dwight Thomas (10.53) also made headway.

In the women's 400m, Shericka Williams (50.91), Rosemarie White (51.13), Novlene Williams-Mills (51.65), Anastasia Le-Roy (51.91), Kaliese Spencer (51.70), Shareefa Lloyd (52.01) and Moya Thompson (52.23) are the top qualifiers.

All the top men's 400m runners, Sanjay Ayre, Ricardo Chambers, Allodin Fothergill, Michael Blackwood, Dwayne Barrett and Leford Green booked their semi-final spots.

In the men's 400m hurdles, Isa Phillips, who won heat one in a season best 48.78 seconds, leads Markino Buckley (49.21) and Danny McFarlane, the silver medalist from Athens (49.54) in today's final.

Ian Weakly (50.08), Adrian Findlay (49.96), Bryan Steele (50.09) and Dean Griffiths (50.27) and Andre Peart, a member of Jamaica's World Junior team, (53.16) are the other finalists.

In the field, Chelsea Hammond leapt 6.61m to beat Jovanne Jarrett (6.52m) and Nolle Graham (6.42m) in the women's long jump.

Phelecia Reynolds threw 45.15m to land the women's discus throw. Genneva Greaves (42.00m) was second while Kenisha Throughsingh (40.55m) finished third in the three-women field.

Julian Reid with a leap of 15.95m beat Ryan Taylor (15.93m) for the men's triple jump crown.

In the Masters 1500m, Lawrence Mendez (4:20.17) won ahead of Oliver Buchanan (4:38.67).