Madison leaps to first title
Before coming to Helsinki, the only senior competition 19 year-old Tianna Madison had ever won was this year’s US college championships. But on a soaking night in the Olympic stadium tonight the American added her name to that of an all-time great – Jackie Joyner-Kersee – by becoming world long jump champion.
Madison defied the wet to win gold with the longest jump of her life, 6.89, someway short of Joyner-Kersee’s winning marks and the shortest winning jump in World Championships history. Not that she’ll care about that.
Madison snatched victory from Tatyana Kotova, the Olympic bronze medallist, in the fifth round after the Russian had led from the end of round one. In the absence of world leader Irina Simigina, Kotova had been expected to take the gold, but in the end had to be satisfied with silver. Her best jump, 6.79, came in the third round.
The reigning champion Eunice Barber grabbed her second medal of the championships in the last round when she was aided by a +2.3 m/s wind to leap 6.76, having overtaken Cuba’s Yargelis Savigne in the fourth.
In an event like this, on a day like this, staying warm was hard enough never mind jumping. Kotova warmed up with a fleece headband; Madison kept her hood up most of the time; and USA’s Grace Upshaw wore a woolly hat. When the rain returned in the middle of the second round they all scampered for cover under the plastic shelter. Who could blame them?
The foul weather was having foul effects on their run-ups too. Only Kotova of the top eight didn’t have a single foul, and there were no fewer than 16 illegal jumps in the competition overall. The conditions were also having an effect on the distances, with most of the field landing some 20 to 30 centimetres short of what they’d usually expect.
Only Madison managed to improve her best but that wasn’t until near the end. In fact, she started with a foul, while Kotova seemed able to find her range immediately. The Russian went into the lead with 6.76 in the first round, with Savigne second on 6.69, a distance equalled by Madison in the second.
At this point Barber was struggling – jumping just 6.44 in the first and having a foul in the second. India’s Anju Bobby George, bronze medallist in Paris, was in fourth with a season’s best of 6.66, only ten centimetres short of the leader.
Little changed in the third round before Kotova, jumping eighth, extended her lead by three centimetres. Savigne had a big foul, landing marginally short of Kotova’s leading effort, and Upshaw moved from seventh to sixth above Barber.
Sotherton, in eighth with 6.42, watched nervously as Edwards set off for the last jump of the third round. She equalled Sotherton’s mark exactly, but her second best jump was only 6.14 to Sotherton’s 6.38. The Briton had survived. Just.
Not that it did her any good. She fouled three times in the second half. Barber, on the other hand, sprang to life in the fourth round with a leap of 6.70 that pushed her up into third despite a negative wind of 1.4.
After a number of big fouls in round five, Madison produced her big one – six centimetres further than she’s ever jumped before in her life. She leapt from the wet sand knowing that the gold medal was within sight.
After a big foul in the fifth Barber improved again with her final attempt, adding another six centimetres to her best, but still three short of Kotova, now in second.
Savigne, the triple jump silver medallist from Sunday, ended with 6.67 so failed to win her second medal of the championships by just seven centimetres. Madison added another big jump with her final effort, but it was judged a foul.
There was then a long pause before the final attempt of the competition while the men’s 400m semi-finals started. Madison endured a nervous wait while Kotova prepared herself for one last shot at gold. It fell short.
Now Madison didn’t care about the rain. She ran to the side to hug her coach, Caryl Smith Gilbert, and set off with the stars and stripes above her head for an unexpected but hugely deserved lap of honour.
