Yargelis Savigne, with a Triple Jump of 14.99 metres wins in Paris' Meeting Areva (© Errol Anderson)
Three centimetres separate four women at the top of the Triple Jump list. If the result is that close in Daegu, fans will have nothing to complain about.
Yargeris Savigne of Cuba went to 14.99m at the Paris Diamond League meeting, a distance recently matched by Colombia’s Caterine Ibarquen in the high altitude of Bogota. The Ukraine’s Olha Saladuha won the Prefontaine Samsung Diamond League with 14.98m: Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan did 14.96m to win her national title in Almaty.
Savigne will be seeking her third title in Daegu. The Cuban took the silver medal in Helsinki in 2005 and won in Osaka in 2007 and Berlin two years ago. She was also silver medallist at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and fifth four years later in Beijing.
Saladuha is the only woman over 15 metres this year, albeit it was a wind-aided 15.06m at the Stockholm Diamond League meeting. Her wind-legal best is the 14.98m with which she won at an earlier Diamond League meeting in Eugene.
She and Savigne have dominated the Diamond League. After Stockholm, Savigne had an edge as tenuous as the one centimetre by which she leads the performance list. The Cuban has wins in Shanghai, Oslo and Paris (Saladuha second in the latter two), Salahuda has wins in Eugene, Stockholm (beating Savigne), and London (ahead of Rypakova).
Rypakova has not featured as prominently in the Diamond League meetings as the other two, but she certainly inserted herself into gold medal calculations with her 14.96m.
The Kazakh jumper book-ended 2010 with two outstanding performances, taking the gold medal at the World Indoor Championships in Doha in March with a final-jump 15.14m effort, and then producing 15.25m to win at the season-ending IAAF/VTB Bank Continental Cup (as a post-script, she also won at the Asian Games in November).
With her big jump in Bogota (2600m above sea level), Ibarguen drew level with Savigne at the top of the world list. She had already recorded 14.83m to take third place in Stockholm behind Saladuha and Savigne.
A 1.93m high jumper, 6.58m long jumper and 5742-point heptathlete, the 27-year-old Colombian has improved steadily throughout the year from a previous best of 14.29m. If she can grab a medal in Daegu, it will be the first-ever for Colombia in a World Championships.
There’s a distinctly world feel to the top of the 2011 list, with the top six coming from four different continents and six different nations. Five will be competing in Daegu.
Greece’s Paraskevi Papahristou has reached 14.72m and the 22-year-old could be among the medal chasers in Daegu.
Mabel Gay, silver medallist in Berlin, and Josleidy Ribalta complete a strong trio for Cuba.
Russia’s top athlete on the 2011 list – Natalya Kutyakova at 14.67m – is not in the Russian team, which comprises Alsu Murtazina (14.55m) and Anna Kuropatkina (14.35m).
China’s Limei Xie won the Asian championship in Kobe with 14.54m. Ryapkova did not compete.
Yargeris Savigne will start favourite, and justifiably so, but the women’s Triple Jump looms as one of the closest contests in Daegu.
Len Johnson for the IAAF
