Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic celebrates a clearance in the heptathlon high jump in Doha (© Getty Images)
The men’s Heptathlon had started maybe a bit more quietly than expected in the first three events so it was time for an eye-catching High Jump in the first day finale, the fourth event. This event was extremely important because of the tight situation at the top of the event.
It was a good competition even before Belarussian Andrei Krauchanka started performing, but he really made it special. The 24-year-old had gotten to a somewhat slow start in the first three events, but in one High Jump competition he changed the angle of his competition from not finishing in the last place to fight for the win during day two.
Krauchanka was almost in the form of his lifetime clearing 2.18m, the second best result in this event ever and his best since February 2005 when he cleared 2.19m in Tallinn. Outdoors he has jumped 2.16m at the World Junior Championships in 2004 and has now scored 3387p after four events for sixth place in the competition.
But he is the strongest of all athletes during the second day and now has a good chance of surprising many athletes above him in the present rankings.
The reigning champion from Valencia 2008, American Bryan Clay finally hit a good mark adding 6 centimetres to his season’s best in High Jump with a 2.06m clearance and narrowly managed to stay in the lead overall after day one having scored 3549 points.
Clay is now again in the driving seat to defend his World indoor title as the first athlete ever in the history of this event. But it’s not going to be easy with Aleksey Drozdov just one point behind the Olympic champion, but the Russian did miss on a chance to gain important points before his weakest event of the competition, the 60m Hurdles.
Drozdov did clear 2.09m in the competition, but that was well below his 2.15m season’s best which would have given him 58 points more and really a shot at the gold during day two. Drozdov has 3548 points for the second place after four events.
But Clay’s win is far from clear, the projected total points for the first four athletes are within just 50 points after day one and the first two events of day two, 60m Hurdles and Pole Vault are tricky events and could bring difficulties for one or two of the leading athletes.
Trey Hardee of USA, the 2009 World decathlon champion is still in the fight for the brightest medal, but has to do extremely well during day two. Hardee set a 2.06m personal best in the High Jump, more than he has jumped indoors (2.04m) or outdoors (2.05m) before and is within touching distance of Clay.
Although Hardee is now only in fifth place with 3450 points, almost 100p behind the leading pair, his second day is very good and he will surely be in the fight for the medals.
Ukrainian Oleksiy Kasyanov jumped a disappointing 2.00m, five centimetres below his season’s best and has scored 3477 points for the third place at the moment. But the Ukrainian’s day two is far from the others and he will be dropped down in the rankings tomorrow.
Czech Roman Sebrle was in good shape in the High Jump clearing 2.09m, the same result he jumped indoors last season. Sebrle has 3465 points for fourth place and has to do a bit better in the 60m Hurdles and Pole Vault than lately to get closer to the medals.
Cuban Leonel Suárez also added four centimetres to his season’s best clearing 2.06m and is on course to break his recent national indoor record 5964p in the competition. The Berlin Decathlon silver medalist is in seventh place with 3234p after day one. Aleksandr Pogorelov of Russia left the competition after the first event.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
