WCH Budapest 23 preview: long jump

Men's long jump

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Two Indian athletes head the men’s long jump top list going into the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23. One of them made the final in Oregon last year, finishing seventh; the other exited the championships in the qualifying round. This year, they have both set PBs: 8.42m by Jeswin Aldrin and 8.41m by Murali Sreeshankar, and it remains to be seen if the pair can replicate that form on the big stage, considering that Wang Jianan’s winning mark in Oregon was 8.36m. Wang’s season’s best this season is 8.26m.

Aldrin achieved his spectacular leap while competing at the Indian Open Jumps Competition held at his training ground, the Inspire Institute of Sport in Bellary, India. His most recent outing this year was at the CITIUS Meeting in Bern, which he won with 8.22m.

His teammate Sreeshankar, who is sixth on the world rankings, broke ground with his PB of 8.41m to win the Indian Championships. The Commonwealth Games silver medallist has also been active on the circuit and has competed in two Diamond League meetings this season, placing third in Paris in 8.09m, and fifth in Lausanne.

Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou has consistently jumped beyond eight metres this season and will set his sights on upgrading his silver from Oregon to gold in Budapest. With victories in Paris, the Gyulai Istvan Memorial, the European Team Championships and Greek Championships, where he recorded 8.38m, the 25-year-old looks good for gold. His strongest showing this year was at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais where he jumped a world-indoor-leading 8.41m.

Taipei’s Lin Yu-Tang broke through the ranks to third on the global standings with his 8.40m jump posted at last month’s Asian Championships in Bangkok. His only competition outside Asia this season was the Brisbane Track Classic in Australia where he placed third with 7.97m and he now prepares to make his World Championships debut.

The Jamaican squad of Carey McLeod (8.40m), Wayne Pinnock (8.37m) and 2019 world gold medallist Tajay Gayle (8.27m) will be on a mission to reclaim the title Gayle lost in Oregon. The 27-year-old failed to record a legal jump during the qualifying rounds, and will aim to make amends this time.

Jamaican champion Pinnock won the 2022 NCAA title, while McLeod upstaged him this year to win the gold. McLeod makes his World Championships debut, as does Namibian Chenault Lionel Coetzee who set a national record of 8.27m back in April – the ninth longest jump this season (tied with Gayle).

Last year’s bronze medal winner Simon Ehammer of Switzerland leapt a season’s best of 8.32m in Oslo and placed second in Paris with 8.11m, but just above him is the US champion Marquis Dendy whose season’s best of 8.34m puts him in seventh place on the top list. Also on the US team are Jarrion Lawson, the silver medallist from London in 2017 whose season’s best is 8.13m, and Steffin McCarter, who was fifth in Oregon.

Italy’s newly crowned European U20 champion and teenage sensation Mattia Furlani has had quite a season. The 18-year-old upstaged the rest of the field to snatch the win in a lifetime best of 8.24m at the FBK Games, and went on to set an outstanding, though slightly wind-aided, distance of 8.44m (2.2m/s) in Savona, and is certainly one to watch.

 

Women's long jump

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A new winner will emerge in the women’s long jump and with four athletes having jumped seven metres or more this season, and with eight of them within the 6.90m range, the stage is set for an electrifying contest.

Germany’s 2019 and 2022 winner Malaika Mihambo, who also won Olympic gold in Tokyo, is out of the championships due to injury, and her rivals would no doubt cherish their prospect of one less hurdle to surmount.

Topping the world standings is Jamaican Ackelia Smith, who soared to a PB of 7.08m to win the Big 12 Conference Championships, taking her to second on the Jamaican all-time list. The 21-year-old NCAA champion will hope to become the first Jamaican woman in World Championships history to win a medal in the event.

Over the years, USA have won a total of eight gold medals, and the trio of Tara Davis-Woodhall, Quanesha Burks and Jasmine Moore will aim to continue that tradition, with four-time winner Brittney Reese being the last champion from the US (2017).

Ranked fourth in the world, Davis-Woodhall has gone over seven metres three times this season, including a wind-aided mark of 7.11m (2.1m/s) set at the USATF Bermuda Grand Prix back in May, and a season’s best of 7.07m two weeks prior. The US champion has recorded top three finishes in her three Diamond League appearances this season, and having missed out on competing at the World Championships last year, the 24-year-old will have a point to prove in Budapest.  

Moore will be going for the long jump and triple jump double at these championships, as she did in Oregon last year, and will first compete in the former. With a PB leap of 7.03m, which she posted to win at the NCAA Indoor Championships, the 22-year-old will hope to replicate that form once again.

Burks was beaten to the bronze medal in Oregon by Brazilian Leticia Oro Melo, whose jump of 6.89m was just 1cm farther than the US athlete’s. Burks’ victory at the London Diamond League, where she jumped 6.98m, will be a big boost to her confidence ahead of the championships.

While her rise in the women’s long jump would appear as sudden to some, it is evident that Larissa Iapichino has been putting in the work as she follows in the footsteps of her mum, two-time world champion Fiona May. The European U23 champion, who won the U20 title in 2019, stunned the likes of Mihambo and Ivana Vuleta to secure three consecutive Diamond League victories, first on her home turf in Florence, and then in Stockholm and Monaco, where she was inspired to a PB of 6.95m.

The city of Budapest holds some significance for the silver medallist at this year’s European Indoor Championships. Exactly 25 years ago, her mother ascended to the long-standing Italian record of 7.11m during the 1998 European Championships where she claimed a silver medal, and as the 21-year-old heads to the same city, a thought on her mind must be breaking that record, having already erased her indoor national record of 6.91m, replacing it with 6.97m.

With an illustrious career spanning nearly two decades and with a massive PB of 7.24m, two world indoor titles, two World Championships bronze medals and four Diamond League trophies among many other impressive laurels, clinching a long-evasive global gold medal would be the prefect icing for Vuleta. Coming with a best this year of 6.98m, which she set at the European Indoor Championships where she won bronze, the 33-year-old Serbian has shown no signs of slowing down.

Great Britain’s Jazmin Sawyers will be making her fourth appearance at the World Championships, and replicating her 7.00m jump at the European Indoor Championships where she struck gold, would greatly improve her chances for a medal.

Asian champion Sumire Hata (6.97m), Romanian Alina Rotaru-Kottmann (6.96m), Marthe Koala (6.94m) of Burkina Faso and Serbian Milica Gardasevic (6.91m) are hitting form at the right time.

Silver medallist from Oregon, Ese Brume, will target a longer jump than her season’s best of 6.81m if she’s to be in contention for a medal. The same is the case for Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk, the silver medallist at Doha 2019, whose best jump this year is 6.59m recorded at the Diamond League in Florence. The 2022 European champion will also compete for honours in the triple jump.

Yemi Olus-Galadima for World Athletics