Yulimar Rojas at the World Indoor Championships Birmingham 2018 (© AFP / Getty Images)
Yulimar Rojas has the chance to make history yet again at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Belgrade 22, where she seeks to become the first three-time triple jump champion in the global indoor event.
Since winning her first world indoor title in Portland in 2016, Rojas has retained it, claimed two World Championships wins outdoors, become the Olympic champion and broken world records both indoors and outdoors. The Venezuelan puts on a show every time she takes to the runway and nothing less is expected in Belgrade. Not since the Rio Olympics in 2016 has she been defeated at a global championships, and on that occasion she still secured silver behind Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen.
The 26-year-old’s world indoor record is the 15.43m she recorded in Madrid in February 2020, while her outright best is the 15.67m she achieved to win the Olympic title in Tokyo. Rojas was just 2cm off that indoor mark in Madrid at the start of this month, when she soared 15.41m in her first triple jump competition since winning the Diamond League title in September.
She went beyond 15 metres in all eight of her competitions last summer and is 79cm clear of her closest rival when it comes to this year’s top list.
“The most important thing there is to do a better mark,” Rojas said in Madrid as she turned her attention to Belgrade. “I want to be champion of the world, but I also want to enjoy the championships. It’s been more than two years since we had a normal championships like this.”
Should Rojas produce what she is capable of, gold is hers for the taking, but the competition to join her on the podium looks wide open.
Thea LaFond is another athlete who has been making history in her career so far. In Tokyo the 27-year-old became the first athlete from the Caribbean island of Dominica to compete in an Olympic final and her 17th place in Birmingham in 2018 was her nation’s best placing so far in a women’s event at the World Indoor Championships.
Since then she has improved her national record to 14.60m in qualifying in Tokyo and added 2cm to that mark indoors in January for a performance that places her second on this season’s top list behind Rojas’ world lead.
Among her competition is Cuba’s 20-year-old Leyanis Perez Hernandez, who jumped an area U20 record of 14.53m last summer and improved her indoor best to 14.47m in February, while all of the athletes who joined Rojas on the podium at the 2018 event in Birmingham and the Tokyo Olympics also line up alongside her in Belgrade.
Jamaica’s Kimberly Williams and Spain’s Ana Peleteiro claimed silver and bronze medals in Birmingham four years ago and have respective season’s bests of 14.32m and 14.15m, while Peleteiro added another bronze to her collection in Tokyo. There silver was secured by Portugal’s Patricia Mamona, the second 15-metre-plus triple jumper in the field thanks to her 15.01m national record from Tokyo, who has a best of 14.17m this year.
World long jump silver medallist Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk is among the six members of the Ukrainian team for Belgrade and as well as her favoured discipline she is also entered for the triple jump, an event in which she sits fifth on this season’s top list.
US record-holder Keturah Orji approached 15 metres outdoors last year and has jumped 14.28m so far this season, while other contenders include her compatriot Tori Franklin and Cuba's Liadagmis Povea.
Jess Whittington for World Athletics
