Olha Saladuha of Ukraine celebrates winning the Triple Jump World title in Daegu (© Getty Images)
Olha Saladuha took the lead in the women’s Triple Jump with a 14.94m leap on the third jump of the competition.
Fifty-three jumps later, that effort still held good and, with only her own last jump to come, Saladuha had the gold medal around her neck.
Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan, last year’s world number one, produced a 14.89m in the fifth round to edge out Caterine Ibarguen for the silver medal.
Ibarguen, who had the silver pretty well all the way through the competition, had to settle for bronze. The national High Jump record holder (1.93m in 2005) won her nation’s first women’s and second-ever medal at a World Championships, following on the heels of Luis Fernando Lopez’s bronze in the men’s 20km Race Walk on Sunday. She was delighted, too, but you fancy there was a touch of regret that it was not silver or gold.
Despair was more the emotion experienced by Yargeris Savigne. Bidding for a third straight title, the 26-year-old Cuban did 14.43m on her first attempt, then retreated to a bench, massaging her right hamstring vigorously. Two more tentative jumps and that was her night. She made a tearful exit, yet another victim of the curse of the daily program cover (she joined Steve Hooker, Usain Bolt, Dayron Robles and Yelena Isinbayeva).
The 2011 performance list foretold a close contest in this event. Three centimetres separated the top four women coming in to Daegu – Savigne 14.99m, Ibarguen 14.99a, Saladuha 14.98m and Rypakova 14.96m – and just 10 centimetres separated the medallists at the end of the competition.
Ibarguen was the most consistent, producing three 14.80 jumps in the last three rounds – 14.81m, 14.84m and 14.80m – and with another year’s technique development under her belt may well be a bigger threat at London 2012.
Rypakova could not find the 15-metre jump which she produced to win the Continental Cup in Split a year ago, but her 14.89m in the fifth round was good enough to beat all but one.
For all that it was close, however, the event lacked something in drama, with the winning jump coming so early and just one change in the medal positions throughout the six rounds.
Take nothing away from the winner, however. She is the only woman to beat Savigne in Samsung Diamond League competition, taking Stockholm with a windy 15.06m. She deserves to be acknowledged as the best on the night and now becomes the woman to beat in London next year.
Len Johnson for the IAAF
