Malmö, Sweden - All those that have questioned or even critized Carolina Klüft's decision to leave the heptathlon in the Olympic year to concentrate on the Long Jump should have seen her in action at the "MAI Galan" on Tuesday in Malmö (3). Because that would have firmly convinced everyone of those doubters that she had indeed made the right decision.

Not because of her performance, although Carolina was a clear winner with the credible mark of 6.77m, but because of the renewed genuine joy at competing she demonstrated. Already at the press conference on Monday the smiles that accompanied almost every answer, even to the "boring" questions, were conspicuous.

And at the competition it was so very obvious that this was an athlete that had rediscovered the ability to truly enjoy what she was doing. She was competing because it was fun, not to live up to the expectations and "demands" of being an athlete everybody takes for granted will win every competition entered.

With that reborn enthusiasm and with this being Carolina's very first "real" competition (with full run-up) as a Long Jump specialist her series 6.67 – X – 6.66 – 6.77 – 6.54 – 6.63 clearly indicates that she will be very competitive internationally also in this event. Especially impressive was her ability to get five legal jumps in the extremely blustery conditions (during the Long Jump the wind varied between 1.6 and 6.7 meters per second!).

Wind hampers rest of programme

That capricious wind, on an otherwise picture-perfect sunny and reasonably warm evening, unfortunately severely hampered all other events. Even the discus throwers who usually love windy conditions suffered as they had to throw with this wind at their backs rather than in their faces. The effect could be well illustrated by Germany's Sabine Rumpf who just two days after 59.39m in Wiesbaden had to be content with 54.78 – but still won!

In the sprints there was a headwind – which resulted in the performances being lowered nominally by almost absurd amounts, approximately half a second in the 100m and a full second in the 200m: Among the women Bianca Knight and Shalonda Solomon fresh from finishing 1st and 3rd in New York with 22.43 and 22.68 ended up with 1st and 2nd now with 23.65 and 24.10!! The kind of times they ran when in Junior High School!

Also the High Jumpers had to face the wind and despite six of them having PB's of 2.25 or better all of them began at 2.10 where combined they made 16 attempts out of which no less than 11 were failures. In the end there was only one really good jump and that was Britain's Martyn Bernard getting a huge clearance on his third and last attempt at 2.27. If he had missed also that trial the event would have been won at a mere 2.20.

Originally Stefan Holm had planned to open his outdoor season here but after a getting hit by fever upon returning two days earlier from a training camp in Italy he had to postpone his premiere. The new date set is 8 June on the home turf of his club Kils AIK.

For the Pole Vaulters the strongly gusting wind came at almost 90 degrees from the left hand side which made the situation not only tricky but also somewhat dangerous. More than 50% of the jumps therefore resulted in run-throughs. Germany's Lars Börgeling and Russia's Pavel Gerasimov were probably the most experienced in the field and not surprisingly they ended up having a jump-off for the win after both had clean sheets up to and including 5.40m.

Börgeling won that jump-off by mastering 5.45 but the best vault of the evening belonged to Gerasimov who was very close to clearing 5.65 on his third attempt in the competition proper.

Kaki still shows useful result despite the wind

The middle distance runners got the wind from all directions which of course discouraged any aspirations from top times. But despite choosing to follow for most part of the race and delaying the unleash of the winning kick until the finishing straight the Sudanese duo of Ismail Ismail and Abubaker Kaki was very impressive and recorded times that were still quite good:

Ismail took the 800m at 1:46.91 by 1.38 from Kenya's Justus Koech and the smooth-striding Kaki the 1500m at 3:39.71 by 1.41 from Kenya's Timothy Kiptanui. For Kaki, still a junior, it was a PB by over five seconds – and still he seemed only to jog effortlessly until the last 100 metres. Kaki could seriously challenge the World Junior Record (3:30.24 by Cornelius Chirchir) later this summer in a suitable race.

With his El Guerrouj-esque low knee lift the 1500m might actually very well end up the future main event for the World indoor Champion at 800m! An opinion that got further strength from the fact that Kaki in this race left some quite capable specialists – Timothy Kiptanui, Demma Daba Bikila och Said Ahmed – literally standing when he stepped on the accelerator in the closing stages.

Lennart Julin for the IAAF

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