Bulgaria's best sprinter Ivet Lalova stormed through her Olympic 100m series with 11.16 sec on Friday going for the quarterfinals.

Later tonight Lalova who is seen among the most prospective medal winners in this year's track and field events will run for a place in the semi-finals.

The Olympics women's 100 meters will be without defending champion Marion Jones, who failed to qualify at the US trials, and silver medalist Ekaterini Thanou, the Greek athlete who withdrew Wednesday following a probe into a skipped drug test.

In the absence of Jones, Thanou and Edwards, Lalova, alongside France's Christine Arron and US Olympic trials winner LaTasha Colander are seen as the many contenders for the gold at 100m.

The Bulgarian is leader in this season's IAAF world list with her top score of 10.77 sec clocked June during the European Championship in Plovdiv.

The 20-year-old Bulgarian won the 100m and 200m double at the European junior championships in 2003.

She is now embedding the hope of Bulgarian sprinting following on from the illustrious feats of Ivanka Valkova, Lilyana Panayotova, Sofka Popova, Nadezhda Georgieva, Aneliya Nuneva and Petya Pendareva.

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