Germany's Celina Leffler in the heptathlon javelin at the 2013 World Youth Championships (© Getty Images)
Germany’s Celina Leffler had a solid second day to win the girls’ Heptathlon with a championship record of 5747 points ahead of Sweden’s Emma Stenlof, who was second with 5590, and Leffler’s compatriot Louisa Grauvogel (5581) here in Donetsk.
Overnight leader and the world youth best performer this year, Great Britian’s Morgan Lake had a disastrous second day after she concluded day one with a comfortable 192 points lead.
Lake, who was particularly impressive in the High Jump where she cleared a personal best and national youth record of 1.90m which incidentally would have won her gold in the individual High Jump final, could only manage to register 4.63m in the Long Jump followed by two fouls around six metres.
She potentially lost about 400 points before also competing poorly in the Javelin Throw with her only valid effort being measured at 30.81m. Down in sixth overall before the 800m, she did not line up for the final event.
Leffler was third overall overnight, trailing Lake by 292 points and a further 100 points off Stenlof but her personal best 6.09m in the Long Jump, combined with Lake’s bad performance, saw her shoot into the lead for the first time in the competition with only the Javelin Throw and 800m remaining.
A solid 40.95m effort in the Javelin saw Leffler go into the final event 122 points in front of Stenlof, with the Australian pair of Aliyah Johnson and Alysha Byrnett trailing a further 24 and 53 points respectively.
Lying down in fifth with one event to go, Grauvogel was 114 points off a potential bronze medal but the German made up all the necessary ground by winning the 800m in 2:19.26 and adding 834 points to her tally.
Johnson and Burnett trailed in at the back of the pack in the 800m and the Australian pair had to be content with fourth and fifth respectively.
Leffler, who was sixth after the Shot Put and down to 13th after the High Jump, scored personal best performances in the High Jump, Long Jump and Javelin Throw over the course of the two days.
The championship record is lower than Tatyana Chernova’s winning score of 5875 points from Marrakech 2005 but that was achieved with heavier implements in the throwing events and in Donetsk, for the first time, a 3kg Shot and 500 gram Javelin was used.
