By Steven Downes for IAAF
Maebashi, March 5 - Colin Jackson, winner of three silver medals at previous International Amateur Athletic Federation World Indoor Championships, finally won the 60 metres hurdles gold today thanks to a low-dipping finish at the end of a nervy race which was characterised by false starts.
The Briton, holder of the indoor world record, feels that in at least one past world indoor final, he was beaten by an athlete who got the better of the starter - in 1993 in Toronto, electronic starting equipment showed that Mark McKoy had started after just 0.053sec, well under the "reaction limit" of 0.100sec, and giving him a one-metre head start, but he was not recalled for a false start. "If I hadn't got that questionable start," McKoy said at the time, "Colin may well have won it."
Now, the rules state that starters shall sound a recall if their equipment signals a too-speedy reaction. In today's final, that rule saw the starter call three false starts, including one against Jackson, before ultimately getting the race underway.
Jackson, as ever, was quickly away (his reaction time of 0.111sec being as close to the limit as possible), but he was always closely pressed by the United States champion, Reggie Torian, drawn in the lane beside him. Both athletes dived for the line, Jackson typically very low, Torian almost sideways with his left arm held high, a technique which the American maintains assists him to get his torso across the line first.
After referring to the photo-finish, the judges gave the race to 32-year-old Jackson, in a championship record 7.38sec, apparently ignoring Torian's shoulder. Few would have thought, though, that two-hundredths of a second separated the first two finishers, least of all Torian who maintained that he had won the race. "I'll still think I won it until I see the photo," Torian said After seeing the photograph, American officials declined to place a protest.
Jackson welcomed the new, stricter false start rules. "The most important thing for me was that they were recalling the starts, because times have gone by when they've let the starts go. It's a great feeling when they actually recall them," Jackson said.
The women's hurdles final was won with a powerful display by Olga Shishigina, of Kazakhstan, the 1995 world indoor silver medallist. Only fifth at the penultimate hurdle, off the last barrier, Shishigina forced her way past Glory Alozie (7.87) and Katie Anderson (7.90) to claim the gold and the 50,000 dollars first prize with 7.86sec.
The opening ceremony of these seventh world indoor championships was presided over by Emperor Akihito, and was witnessed by a near-capacity crowd of more than 8,000, mostly schoolchildren. They saw Haile Gebrselassie claim the seventh IAAF world title (senior and junior) of his career and possibly his easiest 50,000-dollar pay-day yet. He was never tempted by the carrot of a 100,000-dollar world record bonus, though.
After steady opening laps, halfway was reached in a modest 4min 04.80sec, with the field still tightly bunched, but with Kenya's Paul Bitok - twice an Olympic silver medallist at 5,000 metres - Gennaro di Napoli, the Italian who won this event in 1993 and 1995, Gebrselassie and his Ethiopian compatriot Million Wolde, the world junior 5,000 metres champion, looking to dominate the race.
Gebrselassie made the decisive move with two laps to go, taking Wolde and Bitok with him, and never expending more energy than was necessary to win. "I didn't want to go too fast because I have the 1,500 metres tomorrow," said the little Ethiopian after successfully defending the 3,000 metres title he had won at the previous world indoor championships in Paris two years ago.
Gebrselassie clocked 7min 53.57sec, half a minute outside the world record, as Bitok (7:53.79) won yet another silver after outsprinting Wolde (7:53.85). "I'm not invincible," Gebrselassie said. "Anyone can beat me if they run faster than I do. The other competitors were not that strong today. The competition is harder in the 1,500 metres."
In the women's high jump, Monica Dinescu, the Romanian who was last year's world No 1 after winning the World Cup as well as the European titles, indoors and out, failed to win a medal in bizarre circumstances. Attempting 1.96 metres for the first time - a height well within the scope of a woman with a best of 2.02 metres - she scraped the bar, but did not dislodge it. But then, in dismounting the bed, she clumsily kicked over one of the uprights, and so had her jump ruled as a foul.
The judges did not view her appeals sympathetically. Obviously unsettled by the whole affair, Dinescu then failed her next two attempts to her apparent disgust, her exit leaving just three athletes in the competition.
Of those, only the unheralded Khristina Kalcheva, 21, of Bulgaria, managed to clear the next height, 1.99 metres (equalling her outdoor best), as the Czech, Zuzana Hlavonova beat America's Tisha Waller on countback.
DeeDee Nathan was the outstanding winner of the women's pentathlon, dominating the competition from the very start of a tough, 11-hour day. The American set pentathlon bests in all five events - 60m hurdles, 8.26sec; 1.86m high jump; 15.10m shot; 6.24m long jump; and 2:18.98 for 800m - and "won" the first three disciplines to score a total 4,753, for a national record. Russia's Irina Belova, finishing strongly with a 6.45m long jump and 2:09.29 run in the 800m, took silver with 4,691 points to overtake Urszula Wlodarczyk of Poland's (4,596) in the last event.
The Japanese hosts were rewarded for their efforts in staging the meeting with two Asian records and a place in Saturday's men's 200 metres final for Koji Ito, who recorded 20.76sec in his heat and then 20.63 in his semi-final.
Ito will have to improve substantially more if he is to challenge the favourite, Namibia's Frank Fredericks, who tonight clocked 20.18sec in his semi-final, a championship best and the fastest time this year. behind Fredericks was the defending champion from America, Kevin Little, whose 20.32sec equalled the United States national record set a week ago by his team mate, Rohsaan Little.
