Zhong Minwei of China (© Getty Images)
20yearold Zhong Minwei, bronze medallist at the 2006 Beijing World Junior Championships, literally took a giant leap forward into the world elite today.
Zhong, who had already bettered her 2006 PB 16.34m to 16.81m in his first outdoor competition of 2007 three weeks ago, won the 8th Zou Zhenxian triple jump competition with a massive personal best 17.27m at the Shandong Construction University in Jinan on Friday afternoon (15).
The competition was founded in 1999 by Zou Zhenxian to find a way to promote the Triple Jump and to find new stars for the event. Zou is the holder of the national record of 17.34m which he set at the 1981 IAAF World Cup in Rome.
Young Zhong, competing in his home province, Shandong, only missed the record by 7cm and takes the fourth place on the Chinese alltime list behind Zou, Zou Sixin (17.31m 1990) and Zeng Lizhi (17.30m 1995).
Wu Bo set a personal best of 17.03m for the second place and another promising jumper Zhu Shujing established his season's best 16.89m for third. Zhu has been hampered by injuries during the early 2007 season.
Zhong's result is well over the Osaka A-standard and he will now join Gu Junjie on the World Championships team. Gu also lost the competition record 16.89m which he set in Guangzhou in 2000 being only 15-years-old at the time.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
