By A Correspondent
China’s Feng Bin brought off a massive upset on day five of the World athletics championships at Eugene, Oregon on Wednesday by winning the women’s discus gold ahead of a clutch of favourites including the home team’s reigning Olympic champion Valarie Allman.
Adding to Asia’s delight right at the end of the day’s programme was Nora Jeruto of Kazakhstan,a former African champion, with the gold in the 3000m steeplechase. A former Kenyan, who had shifted her allegiance to Kazakhstan, Jeruto clocked a championship record of 8:53.02, which was also a personal best and national record.
Ethiopians Werkuha Getachew with another national record of 8:54.61 and Mekides Abebe with a personal best 8:56.08 took the silver and bronze. The top three clocked the three best times of the world this season.
Winfred Yavi of Bahrain, also a former Kenyan who led at the bell finished fourth in 9:01.31. She held the world lead with an 8:56.55 at Paris in June and looked set to at least get into the medals here.
The 28-year-old bespectacled Feng Bin, who was fifth at Doha in 2019, unleashed a huge personal best of 69.12m in her opening throw on a windy day at Hayward Field.
The headwinds were apparently beneficial to the throwers at the beginning of the competition, and Feng grabbed that opportunity to better her PB by a long way. In her only competition in 2022, the Chinese, Asian champion in 2019 and Asian Games silver winner in 2018, had reached 66 metres in Beijing on 6 April.
“I am very excited about this result and want to share this excitement with my family and my friends,” Feng told reporters. This was Feng’s first World championships medal.
“I did not expect this result coming into Eugene”, the six-foot Feng said. “I wanted to do my best”.
As two-time World champion Sandra Perkovic rounded off her throws in silver position, managing only a throw of 65.67m in the last round, Feng hid her elation, took her own last throw and then raised her arms in jubilation. It was China’s first gold in the event since Li Yanfeng in 2011.
Perkovic did 68.45m in the second round, the best for the Croatian this season, but later, no matter how well she tried, she could not match the tall Chinese.
Allman, heavy favourite for the gold in Oregon and tipped to boost American women’s domination in throwing events, took the bronze with a 68.30m in the third round. She had been dominant so far this season and looked capable of adding to her Olympic success.
Asia had expected success plus one unexpected in previous days at the championships though there was also disappointment that China’s Gong Lijiao was beaten to the second place in women’s shot put.
Mutaz Essa Barshim won a record third World championships gold in effortless style at the Hayward Field, Eugene, to make it yet another memorable occasion for Qatar and Asia.
In the championships in Doha, three years ago, Barshim, performing before a packed stadium of adoring fans plus his family, had won his second title at 2.37m. This time, too, he cleared 2.37m, asked for 2.42m after being assured of the gold, and failed once at that height.
The 31-year-old Qatari has truly become a legend, if he had not last time at home, or in taking a share of the Olympic gold last year with Italian Gianmarco Tamberi at Tokyo in a rare splitting of the gold at a major championship.
Barshim had come back from a career-threatening ankle injury last time at Doha and had not touched 2.30m in the limited number of competitions he had in preparation. This time too he confined himself to just two competitions in May, prior to Oregon, reaching 2.30m once, but showed no signs of rustiness.
“I put a lot of hard work to be where I am”, Barshim told reporters at Eugene.
Korean Woo-Sang-Hyeok, who went through his heights without trouble till 2.33m, looked capable of challenging Barshim, but it was not to be. The Korean has had a good season, posted an indoor national record of 2.36m and won the World Indoors apart from several other competitions. He went up to 2.35m, had a failure at 2.37m and two more at 2.39m.
Ukraine’s Andrey Protsenko, 34, claimed the bronze at 2.33m.
If Barshim’s was a success story yet again, to add to his Doha win in 2019 and the share of Olympic gold, another redoubtable champion from Asia could not produce an encore against an in-form adversary in American Chase Ealy.
The American opened with 20.49m and Gong Lijiao’s response, though her third career best at 20.39m, was not good enough to give her hope. Yet the 33-year-old veteran Chinese, competing in her eighth straight World championships, strove till the very end. Her final throw, with an anxious home crowd for waiting breathlessly perhaps to know Ealy’s fate, measured just 19.89m.
There has been a remarkable improvement in Ealy’s performance this season, she having jumped from a previous best of 19.68m to 20.51m at the US National at the same Eugene venue just 20 days earlier. Her Worlds mark of 20.49m was her second best ever. Seven of her top ten marks have come this year, an indication of how much the 28-year-old American has improved this season.
Gong Lijiao said after the competition that she would now aim for 21 metres rather than look for another title to go with her collection of one Olympic gold, two titles and two silvers from World championships. She has a best of 20.58m achieved at the Tokyo Olympics last year in winning the gold.
Coming back to the venue where he won the World Under-20 title after eight years, Chinese Wang Jianan produced a surprise in the last round to clinch the long jump gold.
Having had just one competition in 2022 prior to Oregon, at Marietta, Georgia, US, where he did a poor 7.67m, Wang Jianan, a former decathlete, was not rated among the contenders for top honours in these championships. But he came up with the jump that mattered in a below-par competition.
Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglu had looked to be in control of the contest till the final round with an 8.32m but could not respond to Wang when the Chinese came up with 8.36m, the second best mark this year. Tentoglu and India’s Sreeshankar Murali share the same performance for the year with Swiss Simon Ehammer leading with 8.45m. Ehammer eventually took bronze in this contest with 8.16m in the second round.
“Seeing my result (8.36m) on the screen, I couldn’t believe that it was possible. Then I recognised that my gold in Eugene is the greatest achievement ever for a Chinese long jumper at the World Championships. It looks like Eugene isn’t only a lucky town for me, but something like a second home,” said Wang. He had taken the bronze in the 2015 World championships at Beijing, the only other time China had won a long jump medal in the global championships.
Wang, a former decathlete who is also the Asian Games (2018) and Asian (2017) champion, said he came to Eugene to make it to the podium but was disappointed till the last round that he only had a best of 8.03m. He was fifth at the Rio Olympics and had made the finals of the World championships in 2017 and 2019.
Peruvian Kimberly Garcia Leon ended the Chinese dominance in the women’s 20km walk with a national record of 1:26:58. It was Peru’s first ever medal in the World championships.
Poland’s Katarzyna Zdzieblo pushed Chinese Shijie Qieyang to the third place. The Chinese, Olympic silver medallist in 2012 who also won the silver in 2019 in Doha, was close to the leader till around 17km but was edged by the Pole in the final stages.
Japan made it gold and silver in men’s 20km walk. Twenty-six-year-old Toshikazu Yamanishi, defending champion, became only the third man in history to win back-to-back World titles as he judged his finish to a nicety to take the gold ahead of team-mate Koki Ikeda. Yamanishi clocked a season best 1:19:07 while Ikeda was home in 1:19:14 followed by Sweden’s Perseus Karlstrom (1:19:18).
Yamanishi made his final move on the last lap, doing it in 3:40. As he approached the line, he pumped his fists to signal victory. Japan opened with this gold in the championships in which it had won two last time.
Elsewhere, the Indians had a mixed bag. Its Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra yet to figure in the javelin qualification, it was largely left to its long jumper Sreeshankar Murali and steeplechaser Avinash Sable to keep the spirits up.
Both made the final, Sreeshankar finishing seventh and Sable, unable to keep pace in the last 200 metres, in a slow race, came in 11th in a disappointing time of 8: 31.75. He had clocked a national record of 8:12.48 at Rabat this season.
Much was expected from Japanese Ryuji Miura in the 3000m steeplechase, but he crashed out in the heats. The same fate befell another Japanese youngster Kazuki Kurokawa in the semifinal stage in the 400m hurdles.
Japanese Abdul Sani Brown made the final of the men’s 100 metres ending up seventh in 10.06s, while Asian record holder Su Bingtian of China went out in the semis with a disappointing 10.30s. Sri Lankan Yupun Abeykoon who had come into the championships with a reputation of having cracked 10.0s (9.96s), went out in the heats clocking 10.19s
There were stunning sweeps and a few upsets, too, in the championships, but in most cases the favourites held. Talking of clean sweeps, not unexpected though, were the 100m feats by American men and the Jamaican women. They were simply awesome.
In the process, Jamaican Shelly Anne Fraser-Pryce took her fifth 100m title in the Worlds clocking 10.67s and equalling her season best. The top seven in the Eugene final cracked 11.0 seconds, a phenomenal feat.
