News Details

Photo Credit: Dan VERNON for World Athletics

Silver and bronze for China in women’s hammer

By A Correspondent

Watched by his parents from the packed stands Mondo Duplantis posted yet another world record in winning the pole vault title for the third time in a row on the third evening of the World athletics championships in Tokyo on Monday.

On another exciting day of athletics at the National Stadium, once again packed close to capacity, the Chinese youngsters, Zhao Jie and Zhang Jiale took the women’s hammer throw silver and bronze respectively to increase Asia’s tally from these championships to three. Japanese racewalker Hayato Katsuki had won a bronze in the 35km event on the opening day. Canadian Camryn Rogers won retained the hammer gold she won in Budapest in 2023.

In other action on day three, two-time men’s 3000m steeplechase champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco was edged at the finish by New Zealander Geordie Beamish by seven-hundredth of a second, the men’s marathon produced a photo-finish in which Tanzanian Alphonce Felix Simbu won his country’s first global title and Sweden’s Ditaji Kambundji came with another shock of the evening with the women’s 100-metre hurdles gold ahead of world record holder Tobi Amusan and Olympic champion Masai Russell who had to settle for the fourth place.

Duplantis upgraded his world record from 6.29m at the Istvan Gyulai memorial in August this year to 6.30m today on his third and last attempt and then shouted for joy, swarmed by Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie, former world record holder, and Greek Emmanouil Karalis who had earlier settled for the silver at 6.00m after a rousing battle for supremacy. Kurtis Marschall of Australia was third with 5.95m, the same height that two-time world champion Sam Kendricks of the US also cleared but had to settle for fourth on a countback. John Obiena of the Philippines, silver medallist at Budapest, had failed to qualify for the final this time.

As had been the pattern set by him, Duplantis used his energy judiciously through his vaults, beginning at 5.55m. He went through five heights up to 6.15m all on his first attempts. By the time he was through with 6.10m it was clear the title was going to be his. Still, Karalis fought hard till the end.

Duplantis failed for the first time in the evening at 6.30m and he failed once more before clearing the height to a huge round of applause from an appreciative audience.

“It’s better than I could have imagined,” he said afterwards. “For the past two weeks, I really enjoyed being in Tokyo. I feel the only way to leave Japan was to set the world record. That was my mentality. I was feeling really good the whole day. I knew I had the record in me. I am glad it all worked out.”

"It was an amazing show," Karalis said. "I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did,” the Greek added. Karalis had won the bronze at the last Olympics.

The hammer throw event provided the Chinese fans with plenty to cheer about as Zhao Jie and Zhang Jiale played out a battle between themselves after having seen Rogers go beyond their capacity in the second round at 80.51m. That proved the winning throw as well for the 26-year-old Canadian who has now gone to the second spot in the world all-time lists behind Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland who set that world record of 82.98m in Warsaw on Aug 28, 2018.

Incidentally, Wlodarczyk, now 40 years of age, was in the field today also, finishing sixth with 74.74m.

Zhao Jie, the Olympic bronze medallist, had an opening throw of 76.54m to Rogers’s 78.09m and her team-mate’s 76.22m. In the sixth round Zhang produced one of 77.10 but the 22-year-old Zhao had the silver at 77.60m in the last round, leaving Rogers the winner and the younger Chinese the bronze medalist.

“I remember watching her Wlodarczyk break the world record in 2016,” recalled Rogers who met the Polish great after her victory and was hugged and congratulated with the words “welcome to the 80-metre club”.

Zhao said she was very confident of success and concentrated on her technique. ““When Zhang went out to 77.10m, I tried to calm down and do my throw technically clean and my coach was supporting me from the tribune.”

Zhang, holder of the World U20 record, said: “To win the World U20 Championships and then to compete in the final here is a huge difference.” Her dream was to take the World championship title in Beijing in the next edition.

In what was the second dramatic finish of the day, Beamish chased down the incomparable El Bakkali over the last 30 metres to give his country its first track title in a World championship. El Bakkali who has raced sparingly this season, was devastated by the loss, his first defeat in a global championship after four successes, two Olympic golds and as many World championships titles.

As is his habit, not till the final water jump did El Bakkali show signs of going into the front, pushing slightly ahead of the fluent running world record holder Lamecha Girma who had competed only in once race this season, in Paris, in June. The battle between the two had been most memorable and painful as the Ethiopian fell on the final back straight, trying to pick up speed and leave El Bakkali with little chance.

This time there was no fall but the man whom El Bakkali had to tackle in the end was Beamish rather than Girma who was also second in the last edition at Budapest. Here, Girma finished sixth while Kenyan Edmund Serem was the proud owner of the bronze at only 17. Beamish, who had taken a crushing fall just two days ago in the heats, finished with 8:33.88, El Bakkali who kept hitting his head with his fist, and wept as the race finished, clocked 8:33.95 and Serem 8:34.56.

Japan’s Ryuji Miura who could have been expected to be a medal contender and who was lustily cheered on the back straight by the huge crowd as he took on El Bakkali and Girma, finally faded to sixth in 8:35.90. He was shell-shocked after the race, unable to fathom the complete eclipse on the finishing straight as the others made a furious dash to the line.

In what was to be the closest finish ever in a global marathon championship, Simbu won from German Amanal Petros in a photofinish in which both were given the same time of 2:09.48. A fraction separated the two in the photo-finish. Italian Illias Aouani was third in 2:09:53.

It was a rare sight to see none of the Kenyans and the Ethiopians figuring among the top finishers. Among the Asians, Ryuta Kondo of Japan ended 11th in 2:10:53. Other Asian placings included Naoki Koyama of Japan at 23 (2:13:42), He Jie of China at 26 (2:14:52), Yang Shaohui of China at 30 (2:15:35) Yuya Yoshida of Japan at 34 (2:16:58) and Shokhrukh Davlyatov of Uzbekistan at 37 (2:18:04).

Kambundji’s high hurdles victory was a surprise result with Olympic champion Russell shocked by the end outcome after she had the poorest start among the contestants at 0.240s. The Swede clocked a national record of 12.24s while world record holder Amusan had the silver in 12.29s and Grace Stark of the US who was not tipped to win a medal the bronze in 12.34. Russell came home in 12.44s at fourth place.

Kambundji said: “It’s crazy. I knew I had it in me. You could see on my face how happy I was when I realised, I won. I thought that I was able to do it but I was surprised because I knew all the competitors were able to win”.

Qatar had all three of its 400m hurdlers into the next round from the opening heats with Abderrahman Samba winning one of the heats in 48.34s and Bassem Hemeida winning another in 48.43s. Ismail Abakar came second in another heat at 48.34.

Three Japanese, Shunta Inoue (48.98s), Daiki Ogawa (50.08s) and Ken Toyoda (49.91s) in different heats were among those who did not progress in the 400m hurdles.