Mitchell Watt of Australia reaches the automatic qualifying mark in the long jump at the 13th World Indoor Championships in Athletics (© Getty Images)
If you are Australian read on, if you are the rest of the world look away now.
The 'Jumping Kangaroos' Fabrice Lapierre and Mitchell Watt excelled providing the only automatic qualifiers during a otherwise forgettable preliminary session.
But while the Aussies will be bouncing, Olympic champion Irving Saladino of Panama will be gutted after crashing out of the competition with a modest best of 7.80m following recent injury problems.
Lapierre, the World Championship fourth-placer, is always capable of the spectacular as witnessed by his stunning victory in the 2009 World Athletics Final. Here he opened with a modest 7.66m, but mercifully raised overall the standard with an impressive second round leap and Area indoor record of 8.19m in qualification group B.
The Australian was at a loss to explain the overall standard of competition, but promised more for the final. "I will go harder and risk more," he added. "I can jump further than I did today."
Earlier in group A Watt, the World outdoor Championship bronze medallist, laid down his medal credentials by precisely achieving the automatic qualifying distance of 8.00m with his first round leap.
Watt achieved the mark despite hurting his groin last week and needed injections even to be able to compete in Doha.
Elsewhere, there was little to cheer. Saladino, who heartbreakingly no-marked at the World outdoor Championships in Berlin last summer, was in danger of the same fate here today. Two successive no-jumps had left him teetering on the brink, but although he legally pierced the sand with his final attempt - 7.80m proved only good enough for 12th and outside the eight final places.
Saladino may have had mitigating circumstances, though and explained: "I could not train for up to three weeks because of an unjury sustained while training in Brazil. I could only train for one week after recovering from the injury. Berlin and Doha have shown me no-one is invincible."
The best of the rest and third longest qualifier was German Indoor champion Christian Reif, who leapt 7.96m with his third round effort.
The defending champion Godfrey Mokoena made it through as the fourth longest qualifier, although even the normally super-consistent South African needed to find a 7.95m third round jump to scramble into a top eight position.
Ignisious Gaisah of Ghana, the 2006 champion, also scraped into tomorrow night's final as the seventh longest qualifier with 7.89m.
The other qualifiers are Salim Sdiri of France with 7.94m, Ndiss Kaba Badji of Senegal (7.93m) and Andriy Makarchev (7.88) of the Ukraine.
Cuba's Olympic fifth-placer Wilfredo Martinez, who no-marked, and the 2008 World Indoor silver medallist Chris Tomlinson of Great Britain (7.75m) were also eliminated.
Steve Landells for the IAAF
