Highlights, titles and sayings: The night at the World Championships in Athletics in Eugene/Oregon at a glance:
No one-digit placement after four days of competition – things are not going well for the German team in Oregon. But now precious metal could be in the air: Discus throwers Claudine Vita (64.89), Shanice Craft (64.55) and Kristin Pudenz (64.39) finished fourth to sixth in the final of the (German) night Thursday a.
Although she only managed the required qualification distance of 64.00 in the second attempt, the Olympic second Pudenz is probably the greatest German hope. “Before the first attempt I was already nervous today. You’re better known now,” said the native of Potsdam.
Valarie Allman seems to be subscribed to discus gold, the Olympic champion was by far the strongest in terms of qualification. But that’s only half the story: the American seemed off the mark at home and made two failed attempts.
At number three, Hayward Field held its breath, Allman slammed the disc to 68.32 and celebrated like the world title. Conclusion: phew.
“Woo” instead of “Puh” was the motto in the men’s high jump, which became a hit, just like at the Olympics. South Korean Woo Sang Hyeok demanded everything from huge favorite Mutaz Essa Barshim – carried by the south stand at Hayward Field, which marked the challenger’s attempts at Icelandic football with “Woo! Woo!! Woo!!!” sonicated.
In the end Barshim celebrated his third world title with 2.37 m ahead of Woo (2.35). At the Olympics, the Qatari celebrated a memorable double gold with Gianmarco Tamberi, this time the Italian (fourth) was delighted with his friend’s solo victory. Bronze went to Andriy Protsenko (both 2.33), who – also a nice story – took Ukraine’s first Eugene medal.
Mateusz Przybylko couldn’t really celebrate at the high jump party, the Leverkusen player got stuck after 2.24 m – twelfth place. It doesn’t really work out for the European champion at major global events.
Olympic champion, world record holder and now world champion for the third time – no other track and field athlete currently dominates her discipline like Yulimar Rojas does the triple jump.
In Eugene she pulled off a terrific 15.47 m show and won by more than half a meter. In her home country, the crisis-ridden Venezuela, the over-athlete is a small source of regular joy for the battered compatriots – even if Rojas’ center of life has long been in Spain.
Morocco’s Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali won the 3,000m steeplechase. That was expectable. It was not to be expected that a cameraman tied up by the triple jump would stand on the track in the middle of the final – with his back to the approaching field.
Unlike in 2015, when a filming Segway rider mowed the great Usain Bolt in Beijing, this time nobody hurt themselves: the running crowd rounded the frightened media representative.
Sophie Weißenberg had a good start in the heptathlon and was ninth after day one. Day two began and ended with three invalid long jumps.
“I have no choice but to focus on the front,” said the Leverkusen native. While she was gathering strength for the European Championships in Munich in August and finishing the competition, the Belgian Nafissatou Thiam also won her second world title with a proud 6942 points after two Olympic victories.
In the last morning session at Hayward Field exactly two disciplines were scheduled – the heptathletes long jump and the heptathletes javelin throw. So no medal decision.
Tickets for regular seats still cost up to $95. They wanted to afford a few hundred die-hards. In the evening, the smallest stadium in World Cup history (15,000 seats) was half full – despite prices between 95 and 295 dollars.