Carolina Kluft throws Javelin Götzis (© IAAF)
Although rain and cold tried their utmost to spoil the party last night (1 July) they didn’t succeed. Home town girl Carolina Klüft certainly gave almost 5000 spectators who had put up with the conditions what they had come to Värendsvallen to see.
As her final tune-up before the European Heptathlon Cup encounter with Denise Lewis this coming weekend, the inimitable “Carro” had chosen to compete in the Javelin Throw and in the Hurdles - and despite the inclement weather the ever-amazing 20 years-old came up with two new PBs.
First she added over two and a half metres to her javelin best by hurling the implement 50.24 on her opening attempt and about an hour later she returned to lower her hurdles mark by four hundredths of a second to 13.29 in windless conditions.
28-years old Oscar Janson had shocked the Pole Vault world two days earlier by clearing 5.87 (on his 16th vault of the day!) in Somero, Finland. Now Oscar - previously quite anonymous outside the inner athletic circles even in Sweden - had the rain-drenched competition won already after 5.31. But he emphatically proved his new found world-class ability by following a first-time clearance of 5.50 with three astonishingly close attempts at 5.78 in the truly pouring rain.
Another world leading Swedish jumper also handled the testing conditions in a masterful manner. Two days after clearing 2.28 (on a monster jump that gave him several centimetres over the bar) at the High Jump meet in Båstad, Christian Olsson returned to his main event and produced another 17-metre competition. Christian’s 17.16 gave him a winning Triple Jump margin of over half a metre.
The two specialist high jumpers that managed to defeat Christian in Båstad - Andriy Sokolovskiy (2.32) and Stefan Holm (2.30) - seemed to suffer much more from the cold and rain now. The Ukrainian ended up 5th on 2.10 and World Ranking leader Holm had to be content with 3rd at 2.19. The winner was the Pole Grzegorz Sposob at 2.22, a height also mastered by 18 years-old Linus Thörnblad.
Most impressive of the foreign athletes were Britain’s Steve Backley, and the Poles Andrzej Krawczyk and Aurelia Trywianska. Backley in his first meet of the year (following a knee operation) produced a consistent series just below the 80m-line, Krawzyk hit 61.69m in the Discus, and Trywianska - under pressure from Susanna Kallur most of the way - lowered Ludmila Engquist’s six years old track record for 100m Hurdles by more than a quarter of a second to 12.81.
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
WEXIÖ GAMES
Växjö, SWE 1 July
(Selected results. All athletes Swedish unless otherwise noted.)
MEN
100m (0.0): 1) Mathew Quinn RSA 10.52.
400m: 1) Johan Wissman 46.13.
110m hurdles (+1.7): 1) Philip Nossmy 13.59.
400m hurdles: 1) Ken Garrett USA 50.17, 2) Marthinus Kritzinger RSA 50.53, 3) Ockert Cilliers RSA 50.70.
HJ: 1) Grzegorz Sposob POL 2.22, 2) Linus Thörnblad 2.22, 3) Stefan Holm 2.19, .... 5) Andriy Sokolovskiy 2.10.
PV: 1) Oscar Janson 5.50.
TJ: 1) Christian Olsson 17.16/+0.2, 2) Ivaylo Rusenov BUL 16.62/+0.6, 3) Peter Tölgyesi HUN 16.44/+0.7, 4) Aleksandr Glavatskiy BLR 16.39/+0.5, 5) Sebastien Pincemail FRA 16.29/+0.1.
DT: 1) Andrzej Krawczyk POL 61.69.
JT: 1) Steve Backley GBR 79.66.
WOMEN
400m: 1) Heidi Seyerling RSA 52.2h.
100m hurdles (0.0): 1) Aurelia Trywianska POL 12.81, 2) Susanna Kallur 12.99, 3) Rachel King GBR 13.28, 4) Carolina Klüft 13.29, 5) Natalya Kresova RUS 13.30, 6) Jenny Kallur 13.41.
400m hurdles: 1) Brenda Taylor USA 56.74.
PV: 1) Kirsten Belin 4.13.
TJ: 1) Camilla Johansson 13.90/+0.4, 2) Irini Dimitraki GRE 13.74/+0.1.
JT: 1) Christina Scherwin DEN 52.57, 2) Carolina Klüft 50.24.
