Despite trailing across the finish line in 2:35.20, seven and half seconds after the next slowest finisher, South Africa’s Justine Robbeson had enough of a lead coming in to this event to retain her gold medal position even after Viktorija Zemaityte crossed the line more than 14 seconds ahead of her in the 800 metres.
Robbeson finished he competition with a World Leading Junior mark of 5868 points, 58 points ahead of Zemaityte, who finished with a new personal best of 5810.
With 5679 points (PB) after earning 878 from her 2:16.03 run, Julia Machtig took the bronze.
Despite falling badly five metres out from the finish line, Antoinette Djimou of France gamely finished the race on all fours in 2:18.10 to earn 850 points and retain her fourth place and end up with a new PB of 5649 from her competition.
The first heat was made up of the competitors ranked from 9th to 16th in the standings. Spurred on by the Italian crowd, Cecilia Ricali won the heat in 2:14.72 to earn 897 points ahead of Russia’s Nadezhda Sergeyeva who lost ground to the Italian after leading the race for the first 500 metres, when Ricali took up the running.
It looked as thought the Russian would reel in the Italian in the final metres, but Ricali found another gear and crossed the line half a second ahead of Sergeyeva who scored 888 points from her time of 2:15.35.
Hungary’s Gyorgyi Farkas was third in this heat with a personal best of 2:16.22 worth 876 points.
