Carolina Kluft (SWE) - Pentathlon (© Getty Images)
In the first session of competition at the 9th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics (14-16 March), Sweden’s World Junior and European senior Heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft immediately took a firm grip of the women’s Pentathlon, spicing up the atmosphere in the National Indoor Arena.
It was 20-year-old Kluft all the way through the first three of the day’s events, the 60m Hurdles, High Jump and Shot. A new personal best of 8.19sec for 1086 points in the first of these, and a second personal uplift in the High Jump, with a clearance of 1.89m (1093pts), took her overall lead to 2179 points after two events, 99 points ahead of defending champion Natalya Sazanovich of Belarus (2080pts), with France’s Marie Collonville, third (2058pts). Last year’s European Indoor silver medallist from Portugal Naide Gomes was fourth at this stage of the competition (2033pts), as the women combined-event participants headed for the early afternoon’s Shot Put.
Kluft wasn’t to disappoint here either, producing another huge new personal best of 14.48m (826pts) having entered the competition with a best of 13.78 indoors! Sazanovich was best overall with a 15.17m put (872pts), but the competition at this stage at least is firmly secure in Swedish hands. As it stands, Kluft’s three event total of 3005, leaves her 37 points ahead of the schedule needed to succeed Irina Belova’s world record mark of 4991.
With two events still to go this evening – Long Jump and 800m - in this five event competition Sazonovich is in second with an impressive 2952, with Gomes further back in third with 2790.
The men’s 60m first round heats had an equally uplifting effect on the stadium atmosphere, given the huge home interest conjured up by the presence of Britain’s double European Indoor champion Jason Gardener, and 2001 World bronze medallist Mark Lewis-Francis in the race for gold. The two didn’t disappoint qualifying easily for this afternoon’s semi-final round with 6.61 (heat 4) and 6.60 (heat 5) respectively.
Ominously heading Lewis-Francis in his heat was Kim Collins of St. Kitts (6.59), the nemesis of British sprinting hopes in Manchester last summer, where among others, he beat Lewis-Francis and Gardener to the Commonwealth 100m gold.
However, heading the whole round of performances was USA’s Justin Gatlin (6.53) who looked more than impressive when winning the first heat, and Finland’s European championships 100m finalist Markus Poyhonen, who equalled his 60m national record with a run of 6.58 seconds.
The women’s 60m first round was headed as expected by Zhanna Block the World 100m champion, who fronted overall the first round qualifiers with a 7.16 clocking (heat five), though American champion Angela Williams was also impressive with her fluid run (7.19) in heat two.
Among the usual array of surprise eliminations and unexpected injuries which are of course the norm during the earlier qualification stages at all major championships, a sore hamstring and an undisclosed leg injury, respectively blighted the championship hopes of two of the expected stars of these championships, Terrence Trammell (60m flat and 60m Hurdles) and Ashia Hansen (Women’s Triple Jump).
Trammell the man who accomplished a feat of six races in one day at the USA championships to gain both a 60m flat dash and a sprint Hurdles team berth in the national squad, pulled up some 10 metres short of the finish line in heat three of the first round of the men’s 60 metres (6.77, 5th).
“The back of my hamstring is sore…I’m not worried about what will happen in the hurdles, right now I just wanna get this right (hamstring).”
In the women’s Triple Jump, Britain’s World Indoor record holder Ashia Hansen bounded out to 14.61 on her first attempt, the eventual leading mark of the two qualification pools group for Saturday’s final, but then limped immediately out of the stadium.
“I’m running off to the doctor to get my physio,” said Hansen. “I was a little scared and definitely in pain, but I’m happy not to have limped off the track. I do not know if I will be World Champion this weekend. I am just confident with my performance so far.”
There were no new injury concerns for Haile Gebrselassie but despite that he seemed intent on making his qualification for Sunday’s final of the men’s 3000m, a title that the Ethiopian won in 1999, as hard as possible. For no apparent reason, Gebrselassie got himself dangerously boxed in on the curb on at least two occasions, when as we all know and was finally shown on the last lap, he remains a class above most of the world’s runners, but eventually sprinted home to a comfortable victory in 7:51.43.
An easy qualifier in the second of the two 3000m preliminary heats was Spain’s Alberto Garcia, the European record holder indoors, who strolled across the line in third (7:50.95) and must be seen as the main threat to Gebrselassie at these championships. The race was won by Kenya’s Luke Kipkosgei (7:47.50), who headed the second Ethiopian squad member, Abiyote Abate (7:47.57).
Kevin Toth’s departure from the men’s Shot Put competition was one of the biggest shocks of the morning. The world season’s leader with 21.70 could not even surpass the 20m barrier and finished a lowly twelfth with 19.35. The preliminary round was headed by the defending World Indoor champion John Godina, whose performance by contrast was assured with a solid first round 20.88.
The only other putter showing the same confidence was European outdoor gold medallist Yuriy Belonog of Ukraine with 20.55, also on his first attempt. All the other top contenders progressed through to tonight’s final with exception of Germany’s European outdoor bronze medallist Ralf Bartels (19.32), and Italy’s former European Indoor champion Paolo Dal Soglio (no mark), who were two competitors who had an even worse day than Toth.
In a packed timetable, the 200m qualification rounds of both the men’s and women’s event took place this morning. Shawn Crawford mounted a very good first stage defence of the World crown he won two years ago in Lisbon, leading the men’s qualifiers with 20.69.
European indoor and outdoor champion Muriel Hurtis looked just as comfortable in the women’s preliminary round, leading the qualifiers with 22.75, with a flowing run in the outside lane of the first heat. Defending World Indoor champion Juliet Campbell also won her heat (fifth heat, 23.12), though the Jamaican doesn’t yet seem to have recaptured the sort of form which took her to gold two years ago (22.64) in Lisbon.
There were no surprises in the women’s 800m with all the major players, Mutola (2:03.33), Ceplak (2:02.12), and Graf (2:01.93) easing into tomorrow’s semi-final stage with wins in their heats. Mutola, like Gebrselassie earlier in the day tried to make life difficult by positioning herself at the rear of the field in heat four, necessitating a wide attack around the outside before they entered the final bend – always a dangerous tactic on a tight indoor track – and she powered away to the expected win.
The temporary disqualification of Russian champion Natalya Nazarova for a lane infringement in the women’s 400m heats produced the biggest surprise, especially as it left Britain’s Catharine Murphy as the leading qualifier for the next round (51.89). However, Nazarova was subsequently reinstated on appeal to go through to the semis. Sandie Richards the defending champion and the other favourites such as Germany’s Grit Breuer all progressed safely through to tomorrow’s semi-finals.
Spain’s Yago Lamela the season’s world leader (8.43m) in the men’s Long Jump who took the silver at these championships in 1999, is back very much to his best this season and leads the qualifiers into Saturday’s final with the only eight metres leap (8.12) of the preliminaries. Even with the presence of the American national gold and silver medalists - Miguel Pate and Dwight Phillips - in the final, the Spaniard looks to have the gold firmly within his leaping reach in Birmingham.
For detailed event reports go to –
http://www.iaaf.org/WIC03/news/kind=132/index.html
IAAF
