Eunice Barber jumps to a French record in Monaco (© Getty Images)
15 September 2003MonteCarloFor the Stade de France on August 30, read the Stade Louis II on September 14. Lightning struck in the final round of the women's Long Jump at the IAAF World Athletics Final here in Monaco, as it did at the ultimate stage of the same event at the World Championships in Paris.
Once again, it was Eunice Barber who produced the dramatic bolt - and Tatyana Kotova who was left suffering from it. At the World Championships, to roars of acclaim from the patriotic French public, Barber snatched gold from her Russian rival with a leap of 6.99m. At the World Athletics Final, to the audible delight of the Monegasque and the French in attendance, the naturalised Frenchwoman did the same again.
Kotova, twice the World indoor champion, gained the lead from Barber with a jump of 6.92m in the third and penultimate round. Lesser athletic mortals might have buckled, but Barber's competitive instinct has clearly been forged from granite. Her response was a mighty 7.05m, a 4cm improvement on the French record she set in Paris in 1999.
"It's competition," Barber said. "On the last attempt I just give all I have."
It is ironic to reflect that Barber's summer of golden hope was clouded on the first weekend of the World Championships when Carolina Kluft gave everything she had after two fouls in the Heptathlon Long Jump. The young Swede's 6.68m jump left Barber facing the reality of a silver lining in the event she won in Seville in 1999.
Second best in the World Championship Heptathlon Long
Jump, Barber is now world champion and World Athletics
Final winner in what she still considers to be her secondary discipline.
"The end of the season has been very good for me," the 28-year-old native of Sierra Leone reflected. "It is a good omen for next year and it gives me more motivation to follow the medical procedures and recover 100% from my injury."
Barber, incredibly, is still suffering from the sciatic nerve damage that undermined her defence of the World Heptathlon title in Edmonton two years ago. "At the moment I have some problems with one of my toes," she said.
The wonder is what the darling of French track and field might achieve when she is 100% fit and healthy - both in the Long Jump and the Heptathlon. Hopefully, the answer will come in Athens next year.
