David Giralt sails 17.29m in Gothenburg (© Hasse Sjögren)
Gothenburg, SwedenThe undisputed main event at the 2010 edition of the SamsungGalan in the Scandinavium arena in Gothenburg on Tuesday (2) was the return to the international Triple Jump "wars" by a now finally healthy Christian Olsson. It was extra special as the leading triple jumper of the 2000's is also a local hero born and raised in Gothenburg and as he was brave enough to take on the Berlin World champion Phillips Idowu!
Olsson and Idowu had met 20 times between 2000 and 2007 and the score was an emphatic 18-2 in favour of Olsson as he had lost only the 1st and the 20th of their encounters. But this time Idowu was regarded as the favourite on the strength of him being the top jumper of 2009 while Olsson had been struggling with injuries for the last few years.
However, the answer to the "Olsson or Idowu?" question this evening was "neither" as the event was ruled by the Cuban trio of David Giralt, Alexis Copello and Yoandri Betanzos who all displayed both a good "bounce" and a crisp technique on the built-up runway. So not only did they occupy the top three position in the meet – they also moved into positions No. 1, 2 and 4 on the 2010 World list!
While Copello and Betanzos were showing the best consistency it was Giralt that hit the big one as he bounded all the way to 17.27m in the third round to win by over a quarter of metre ahead of Coppelo and Betanzos who hit close to the 17m-mark (one centimetre over and two centimetres below respectively).
As for the Olsson vs Idowu match-up it ended in favour of Olsson (16.87m vs 16.74m) who thus now is 19-2 in head-to-head score. However, it should be noted that Idowu had a massive final attempt (way beyond 17 metres) which however got a red flag as he fouled by a few centimeters at the take-off.
So the Cubans should not expect to continue to have the event all for themselves in the future. And the Triple Jump world also better be prepared for Olsson soon re-joining the 17m-club! Among those he left far behind today was former World leader Walter Davis who actually had to be content with 7th place.
The women's High Jump has always been a main attraction at the SamsungGalan thanks to athletes like Kajsa Bergqvist, Blanka Vlasic and Ariane Friedrich and there was every intention to build on that tradition in 2010 with Vlasic being the first athlete being announced last autumn. However, two days ago Vlasic had to cancel her appearance due to a virus infection.
Then a slight groin problem stopped hometown jumper Emma Green from competing but still the High Jump turned out to be a decent competition with Russia's Svetlana Shkolina and Kazakhstan's Marina Aitova clearing 1.92m and Laverne Spencer (Saint Lucia) and Chaunté Howard (USA) 1.90m.
Wiberg upsets Hardee in three-eventer
Despite Vlasic's DNS Phillips Idowu wasn't the only Berlin champion in action at the SamsungGalan: Decathlon dominant Trey Hardee of the USA was competing in a special three-eventer consisting of the 60m Hurdles, Shot Put and Long Jump where he was challenged by three other athletes from the Berlin top-eight: Cubans Leonel Suarez and Yordani García plus Sweden's Nicklas Wiberg.
Hardee was off to a blazing start in the "triathlon" storming through the Hurdles race in 7.70. The quality of that effort is probably best illustrated by the fact that in the following preliminaries for the specialists only David Oliver (7.57) was faster than Hardee! Also Garcia and Suarez opened strongly by dipping well below 8 seconds while Wiberg after a slow start had to be content with 8.20.
The Shot Put was dominated by Garcia whose 15.91m while the other three top contenders had to be content with marks in 14's. Most happy with that was Wiberg who improved his indoor PB to 14.87m. Going into the Long Jump Garcia was leading by 60 points over Hardee who was +66 on Berlin silver medallist Suarez.
But then the Long Jump turned everything around once more: While Wiberg had three solid jumps (7.45m – 7.39m – 7.12m) none of the others managed to reach even seven metres. Hardee – who had 7.83m in his World championships series last summer - never managed to get on the take-off board and had to be content with 6.96m. And despite being almost a full half metre behind Wiberg the American still ended up second in the event!
When the final scores were computed it turned out that Wiberg had gone from fourth to first place winning with 11 points from Garcia and 13 from Hardee. So despite not having his three best Decathlon events (Javelin Throw, High Jump and 1500m) Wiberg managed to defeat the top-two from Berlin which ought to strengthen his chances to be considered for one of the "wild cards" for the Heptathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Doha in mid-March.
Especially if can perform as well in eight days at the GE Galan meet in Stockholm where there will be another three-eventer. There the events will be 60m Hurdles, Long Jump and 400m and the top-four today will be there as will Berlin bronze medallist Aleksandr Pogorelov who will be added to the mix.
Kiss cruises to upset in 60m Hurdles
With no oval track the SamsungGalan meet has always focussed on the jumping events and the straightaway races with and without hurdles. The top event there this year was the men's 60m Hurdles with David Oliver as the big favourite. Oliver was impressive in the heats running 7.57 despite taking it easy in the run-in from the last hurdle. As the other finalists qualified by times between 7.75 and 7.87 everything but a clear win for Oliver would be a major surprise.
It did become a major surprise because Oliver got a race where he seemed to be struggling to keep his balance all the way. No momentum, just fighting to "survive" and despite weaving off into the lane to the right a couple of times Oliver did manage to reach the finish line. But not first as Hungary's Daniel Kiss managed to keep a 0.02 advantage. How bad the race was for Oliver was clearly shown by the clock: After an easy 7.57 in his heat he was 0.15 slower in the final.
In the women's hurdles Russia's Aleksandra Antonova was off to a blistering start while USA's Danielle Carruthers seemed to be almost two metres behind at the first hurdle. But Carruthers didn't panic and gradually worked herself back into contention and at the finish line she outdipped Antonova: 8.12 vs 8.15.
The women's Pole Vault belonged to Germany's Lisa Ryzih who entered at 4.24m where the last of the other competitors were eliminated. Ryzih went on to clear 4.40m emphatically before failing three times at 4.50m.
The men's event on the other hand was quite competitive with five clearing 5.45m and four clearing 5.55m. But at 5.65m Belgium's Kevins Rans – fresh off a new national record of 5.71m during the weekend – was the only one to clear the bar as Maksym Mazuryk, Przemyslaw Czerwinski and Göteborg native Oscar Janson all failed three times. Rans had the bar raised to 5.76m and had one very good attempt.
A. Lennart Julin for the IAAF
Click here for full results
Olsson and Idowu had met 20 times between 2000 and 2007 and the score was an emphatic 18-2 in favour of Olsson as he had lost only the 1st and the 20th of their encounters. But this time Idowu was regarded as the favourite on the strength of him being the top jumper of 2009 while Olsson had been struggling with injuries for the last few years.
However, the answer to the "Olsson or Idowu?" question this evening was "neither" as the event was ruled by the Cuban trio of David Giralt, Alexis Copello and Yoandri Betanzos who all displayed both a good "bounce" and a crisp technique on the built-up runway. So not only did they occupy the top three position in the meet – they also moved into positions No. 1, 2 and 4 on the 2010 World list!
While Copello and Betanzos were showing the best consistency it was Giralt that hit the big one as he bounded all the way to 17.27m in the third round to win by over a quarter of metre ahead of Coppelo and Betanzos who hit close to the 17m-mark (one centimetre over and two centimetres below respectively).
As for the Olsson vs Idowu match-up it ended in favour of Olsson (16.87m vs 16.74m) who thus now is 19-2 in head-to-head score. However, it should be noted that Idowu had a massive final attempt (way beyond 17 metres) which however got a red flag as he fouled by a few centimeters at the take-off.
So the Cubans should not expect to continue to have the event all for themselves in the future. And the Triple Jump world also better be prepared for Olsson soon re-joining the 17m-club! Among those he left far behind today was former World leader Walter Davis who actually had to be content with 7th place.
The women's High Jump has always been a main attraction at the SamsungGalan thanks to athletes like Kajsa Bergqvist, Blanka Vlasic and Ariane Friedrich and there was every intention to build on that tradition in 2010 with Vlasic being the first athlete being announced last autumn. However, two days ago Vlasic had to cancel her appearance due to a virus infection.
Then a slight groin problem stopped hometown jumper Emma Green from competing but still the High Jump turned out to be a decent competition with Russia's Svetlana Shkolina and Kazakhstan's Marina Aitova clearing 1.92m and Laverne Spencer (Saint Lucia) and Chaunté Howard (USA) 1.90m.
Wiberg upsets Hardee in three-eventer
Despite Vlasic's DNS Phillips Idowu wasn't the only Berlin champion in action at the SamsungGalan: Decathlon dominant Trey Hardee of the USA was competing in a special three-eventer consisting of the 60m Hurdles, Shot Put and Long Jump where he was challenged by three other athletes from the Berlin top-eight: Cubans Leonel Suarez and Yordani García plus Sweden's Nicklas Wiberg.
Hardee was off to a blazing start in the "triathlon" storming through the Hurdles race in 7.70. The quality of that effort is probably best illustrated by the fact that in the following preliminaries for the specialists only David Oliver (7.57) was faster than Hardee! Also Garcia and Suarez opened strongly by dipping well below 8 seconds while Wiberg after a slow start had to be content with 8.20.
The Shot Put was dominated by Garcia whose 15.91m while the other three top contenders had to be content with marks in 14's. Most happy with that was Wiberg who improved his indoor PB to 14.87m. Going into the Long Jump Garcia was leading by 60 points over Hardee who was +66 on Berlin silver medallist Suarez.
But then the Long Jump turned everything around once more: While Wiberg had three solid jumps (7.45m – 7.39m – 7.12m) none of the others managed to reach even seven metres. Hardee – who had 7.83m in his World championships series last summer - never managed to get on the take-off board and had to be content with 6.96m. And despite being almost a full half metre behind Wiberg the American still ended up second in the event!
When the final scores were computed it turned out that Wiberg had gone from fourth to first place winning with 11 points from Garcia and 13 from Hardee. So despite not having his three best Decathlon events (Javelin Throw, High Jump and 1500m) Wiberg managed to defeat the top-two from Berlin which ought to strengthen his chances to be considered for one of the "wild cards" for the Heptathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Doha in mid-March.
Especially if can perform as well in eight days at the GE Galan meet in Stockholm where there will be another three-eventer. There the events will be 60m Hurdles, Long Jump and 400m and the top-four today will be there as will Berlin bronze medallist Aleksandr Pogorelov who will be added to the mix.
Kiss cruises to upset in 60m Hurdles
With no oval track the SamsungGalan meet has always focussed on the jumping events and the straightaway races with and without hurdles. The top event there this year was the men's 60m Hurdles with David Oliver as the big favourite. Oliver was impressive in the heats running 7.57 despite taking it easy in the run-in from the last hurdle. As the other finalists qualified by times between 7.75 and 7.87 everything but a clear win for Oliver would be a major surprise.
It did become a major surprise because Oliver got a race where he seemed to be struggling to keep his balance all the way. No momentum, just fighting to "survive" and despite weaving off into the lane to the right a couple of times Oliver did manage to reach the finish line. But not first as Hungary's Daniel Kiss managed to keep a 0.02 advantage. How bad the race was for Oliver was clearly shown by the clock: After an easy 7.57 in his heat he was 0.15 slower in the final.
In the women's hurdles Russia's Aleksandra Antonova was off to a blistering start while USA's Danielle Carruthers seemed to be almost two metres behind at the first hurdle. But Carruthers didn't panic and gradually worked herself back into contention and at the finish line she outdipped Antonova: 8.12 vs 8.15.
The women's Pole Vault belonged to Germany's Lisa Ryzih who entered at 4.24m where the last of the other competitors were eliminated. Ryzih went on to clear 4.40m emphatically before failing three times at 4.50m.
The men's event on the other hand was quite competitive with five clearing 5.45m and four clearing 5.55m. But at 5.65m Belgium's Kevins Rans – fresh off a new national record of 5.71m during the weekend – was the only one to clear the bar as Maksym Mazuryk, Przemyslaw Czerwinski and Göteborg native Oscar Janson all failed three times. Rans had the bar raised to 5.76m and had one very good attempt.
A. Lennart Julin for the IAAF
Click here for full results
