Jadel Gregorio (Brazil) jumping to the silver medal at the 2004 World Indoor Championships in Budapest (© AFP/Getty Images)
Brazil’s Jadel Gregório, silver medallist at the 2004 World Indoor Championships in the Triple Jump will be up against top-10 IAAF World Event Ranked athletes, such as USA’s Walter Davis and Tim Rusan, at both of Brazil’s IAAF Grand Prix meets - 16 May in Rio de Janeiro (GP II), and a week later in Belém (GP) on 23 May.
Gregório, the South American indoor record holder with 17.46m which he achieved on 15 February in Karlsruhe, Germany, will be making his first outdoor appearances in the Triple Jump of the 2004 outdoor season.
His two top rivals will be Davis, the silver medallist at the 2003 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, and holder of a personal best of 17.59, and Rusan, who has a best of 17.45m indoors and 17.34m outdoors.
Gregório was fifth in the World Championships in Paris last summer, a final into which Davis failed to advance (15th best overall with 16.60m) but the American did come seventh in the Long Jump in Paris. The 26 year-old Rusan by contrast has only one major championships placing in his career, a fifth at the 2003 World Indoors.
Currently in the IAAF World Event Ranking Gregório is second placed behind Sweden’s World champion Christian Olsson, while Davis and Rusan share the ninth spot.
Latest action in South America
Over last weekend (24/25 April) in South America, Uruguay’s Andrés Silva, the 2003 World Youth Octathlon champion, completed his first Decathlon with Junior implements, and set a new Area Junior record with 7440 points, while improving the previous top mark by almost 700 points.
Competing in Rosario, Argentina, the multi-talented 18 year-older registered 10.8 at 100m, 7.30 in LJ (a new national junior record), 12.41 with the 6Kg Shot, 1.89 in HJ, 46.9 in 400m, 15.1 in 110mh, 35.76 with the 1.75Kg Discus, 3.90 in PV, 51.96 in JT, and 4:19.7 in 1500m.
Previously, he also improved the national junior record of 200m with 21.28, on April 18, at the “Darwin Piñeyrúa” meet in Montevideo.
Before the Brazilian IAAF Grand Prix stages, there are going to be two more stops of the local South American circuit. One in Porto Alegre on 1 May, and then the classic “Orlando Guaita” in Santiago de Chile a week later.
