Kajsa Bergqvist winning the 2006 Eurojump in Goteborg (© Hasse Sjögren)
Göteborg, SwedenThe premeet publicity for the 4th edition of "Eurojump" (8-February) in the Scandinavium arena in Göteborg was dominated by the High Jump competitions. But at the actual meet it was the Pole Vaulters that provided the top marks and records to the meet record crowd of 7,208 vociferous spectators.
With 5.82 Lobinger raises his world lead
In the men's event four athletes cleared 5.65 and it took the new World leading mark for 2006 of 5.82 for Tim Lobinger to secure the victory. This because local hero Alhaji Jeng surprised almost everyone with a brilliant first attempt clearance of the new Swedish indoor record height of 5.76.
Lobinger, who seems to compete every other day (and travels on the other days), did not find the consistency in his jumping this time and made no height with his first attempt. On his good vaults, however, Lobinger was technically brilliant and cleared in impressive fashion. But his new World leading mark came in his 10th jump of the evening after having made 5.50 on his second, 5.65 and 5.76 with his third, and 5.82 on his second! Lobinger concluded the evening - and the whole meet - with a pair of decent attempts at 5.91.
Pole Vaulting also opened the meet as the women had to start before the main programme, something that didn't prevent them from providing an exciting competition for the sparse – but enthusiastic – crowd that had come so early to the Scandinavium arena.
World junior record holder Silke Spiegelburg of Germany had the top 2006 mark (4.40) of the field coming into the meet, but had to settle for third as the Swedish duo of Hanna-Mia Persson and Kirsten Belin revived their national record breaking habits of this decade’s early years. Persson improved Belin’s three-year old mark of 4.37 by clearing 4.40 on her first attempt, but remained sole possessor of the record for just a few minutes as Kirsten flew over the same height on her third attempt.
Despite lack of ‘spring,’ Bergqvist again over 2m
But even though the Pole Vaulters stole the record headlines this evening that doesn't mean that the High Jumpers disappointed the spectators. Not unless they had expected another World record from Kajsa Bergqvist. But World records are very special indeed and Bergqvist was still feeling the effects of the "discharge" of physical and mental resources in Arnstadt just four days earlier, when she raised the World indoor record to 2.08*.
“I didn't have anywhere near the same spring in my legs today,” Bergqvist told the crowd. “And if it hadn't been for your support tonight I would probably have ended up at something like 1.85.”
And it was visible that she did have to struggle quite a lot. She had one failure at 1.94 and two at 1.96 and at that stage she had not yet won the event as the upward trend for World Championships bronze medallist Emma Green continued. Green added another centimetre to her indoor PB, and was quite close at 1.96.
But in the end Bergqvist prevailed, clearing 1.96 with a big margin on her third attempt and then added another 2.00 with her second attempt, before concluding the event with one decent try at 2.03. It is worth pointing out that this was Bergqvist 's fourth meet in just eleven days: 2.01 in Glasgow, 1.98 in Stockholm, 2.08 in Arnstadt and now 2.00 in Göteborg!
The men's High Jump ended with a Swedish victory as Linus Thörnblad was the only jumper to make 2.26, although both Kyriakos Ioannou (CYP) and Grzegorz Sposób (POL) were very close. But Thörnblad underlined that he was the best jumper this evening by coming even closer at 2.30. Stefan Holm, who was scheduled to compete, was forced to take some time off from competition to cure a persistent bronchitis that has bothered him the whole year.
8.18 win for Jensen
Somewhat lost in all the vertical jumping was a brilliant Long Jump competition. Despite the presence of renowned U.S. jumpers Miguel Pate and Savante Stringfellow, the winner was Dane Morten Jensen who improved his national indoor record by about a quarter of a meter by flying out to 8.18 in the fourth round.
Pate and Stringfellow also produced some long jumps, but had problems hitting the board well. Pate finally succeeded on his sixth and last when he was perfect on the board to reach 8.16. But it still wasn't sufficient to wrestle the first place honour from Jensen, who seems to really thrive on jumping in Göteborg. The old indoor record was set in this city and the same goes for his outdoor record of 8.25. Let this be a warning to all other European Long Jumpers as the European Championships this coming August will be held in Göteborg!
As could be understood from the name of the meet, the jumping events take centre stage at Eurojump but there is also a sprint runway in the Scandinavium arena. The main performer there was Swede Susanna Kallur who extended her unbeaten record over the hurdles with her third straight sub-eight of this winter (7.97), before coming back about an hour later to win the 60m dash in 7.32 ahead of specialists Heidi Hannula (7.33) and Stephanie Durst (7.34).
In the men's events Ron Bramlett dominated the Hurdles winning by a wide margin in 7.64 as supposed main opponent Marcio de Souza went down on the 4th hurdle. The flat sprint was extremely close with Jamaican Christopher Williams winning a photo-finish decision by .01 in 6.72 despite being fourth in his heat and thus barely scraping into the final.
* Pending ratification
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
