Photo Credits: Christel Saneh for World Athletics
Shi Yuhao wins long jump bronze
By A Correspondent
World and Olympic champion Winfred Yavi was beaten to second place by Faith Cheprotich in the final of the women’s 3000m steeplechase in Tokyo on Wednesday. In a final sprint to the finish from about 200 metres out, Cheprotich rewrote the pre-meet script to the delight of the Kenyan fans. Yavi, normally a fast finisher, could not respond adequately to the challenge posed by her younger opponent and finally settled for the silver. Ethiopian Sembo Almayew took the bronze. Cheprotich clocked a championship record of 8:51.59 while Yavi, a former Kenyan, timed 8:56.46 for the second place with 20-year-old Almayew’s bronze coming in a personal best 8:58.86. Norah Jeruto of Kazakhstan was sixth in 9:06.34.
"I am so happy to win today," said Cherotich. "Improving from bronze to gold is amazing to me. I didn’t know how it would go at the start, but I was ready. In the last 400m,” said Cherotich. “The goal was to win, but I am grateful for this silver,” Yavi said. “In the last 200 metres, I was still strong, but I couldn’t hold the speed”, the former Kenyan added. On another day of drama, spills and thrills, Peruth Chemutai of Uganda took a tumble on the last water jump and failed to finish. The Olympic champion in 2021 at the very same National Stadium, was considered a major threat to Yavi before these championships began.
There was another medal for Asia on this fifth day as Chinese Shi Yuhao took the men’s long jump bronze, being separated from the silver winner Tajay Gayle of Jamaica by a mere centimetre, 8.34m to 8.33m. Twenty-year-old Italian Mattia Furlani was the gold winner in a personal best 8.39m.He added the World outdoors title to the Indoor one won earlier this year. Chinese Zhang Mingkun was sixth with 8.18m. The tragedy of the long jump contest was the failure of defending champion and two-time Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou to progress to the final rounds. He could manage only 7.83m to be 11th in the placings. The top 10 go through to the final round.
Portugal’s Isaac Nader provided the surprise of the evening, storming past four runners in front of him in the last 30 metres in a high-voltage men’s 1500m final. In a race full of possibilities with three former World champions in the midst, Nader himself was aghast as he finished and realised that he had won the title. Britain’s defending champion Josh Kerr took a knock on his foot before going into the final lap and limped his way to the tape in last at 4:11.23. Nader timed 3:34.10 while Jake Wightman of Britian, the winner in the 2022 edition of the championships tumbled at the finish but still managed to get the silver, a mere two-hundredth of a second from Nader.
Kenyan Reynold Cheruiyot was the bronze winner in 3:34.25.
The 2021 Olympic champion Jacob Ingebrigtsen was unable to get through to the final, while last year’s Olympic champion Cole Hocker was disqualified for nudging another competitor on the straight in the semifinals. Despite all these reversals the final was expected to be a hot contest but it turned out to be slow and Nader, a finalist in the last World championships, had the better kick at the finish to clinch the gold. American Katie Moon took her third consecutive pole vault gold, edging team-mate Sandi Morris, the perpetual silver medallist, with a season best 4.90m. Morris had 4.85m and Slovakian Tina Sutej won the bronze at a season best of 4.80m. Morris had raised the bar to 4.95m for her last attempt after having failed at 4.90m and failed again. Moon went for 5.01m but there was to be no success. In men’s long jump qualification, there was much interest for Asia as defending champion Neeraj Chopra of India was opening his defence of the title today. The Indian who had won the Olympic title at the same venue four years ago, opened with an 84.85m to cross the automatic qualification mark of 84.50m. However, it was two-time World champion Anderson Peters of Grenada who cornered the limelight at the javelin contest with a season best 89.53m. German Julian Weber, expected to be the front-running challenger to Chopra with two victories over the Indian this season and also with two 91-metre efforts, was overall second in qualification with 87.21.
Former World Champion Julius Yego of Kenya (85.96m) and a surprise intrusion into the automatic qualifiers bunch, Poland’s Dawid Wegner was fourth 85.67m. The Indian focus remained on the javelin run-up even after Chopra did one throw and qualified for the final. That was to see how much Pakistan’s Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem would manage making as he was the debut for the season after having reportedly battled with injuries.
Nadeem did 85.28m to come at fifth place leaving Chopra a rung below, a psychological boost for the Pakistani on the eve of the final. Czechia’s Jakub Vadlejch, coming back into competition following injuries, did reasonably well with an 84.11m.
India had four throwers in javelin and Sachin Yadav, who has been in excellent form this season, joined Chopra in the final with 83.67m that placed him tenth overall. Two other Indians Rohit Yadav (77.81m) and Yash Vir Singh (77.51m) went out of the race. Last time at Budapest there were three Indians in the final, Kishore Jena who could not qualify this time for the championships, and D. P. Manu who is serving a doping suspension, joining Chopra and eventually finishing fifth and sixth respectively. Sri Lankan Rumesh Tharanga (82.80m) took the 12th and last place in the qualification standings to make it to the final. Team-mate Sumedha Ranasinghe (81.86m) finished 15tth and could not make it. Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba, bronze winner in the 2019 World championships at home, led the qualifiers into the semifinals of the men’s 400m hurdles clocking 48.03s. Team-mates Ismail Abakar (48.34s) and Baseem Hameida (48.43s) joined him. To go out of the race were two Japanese, Daiki Ogawa (50.08s) and Ken Toyoda (51.80s).
In the men’s triple jump qualification, Algerian Yasser Mohammed Triki topped with 17.26m. Chinese Wu Ruiting, the leader in the season’s lists with 17.68m could not get past the qualification, finishing 14th overall with 16.74m. India’s Praveen Chithravel (16.74) and Abdulla Aboobacker (16.38m) were also eliminated. The more experienced Chinese, Zhu Yaming barely managed to get among the top 12 with a 16.83m and lived to fight another day. Another Chinese, Su Wen (16.90m) was comfortably the final finishing overall ninth. Towo Uzawa of Japan (20.39s) went through to the semifinals of the men’s 200m while two other host entries, Soshi Mizukubo (20.51s and Shota Izuka (20.64) failed at the first hurdle. Also going out was Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz Atafi (20.66s) and India’s Animesh Kujur (20.77s)
Comments are closed.