The qualifying round produced not just the desired eight, but twelve finalists for Saturday's action, as the target for automatic qualifying was again uncannily accurate at 14.30 with four jumpers clustered between 14.32 and 14.30 to produce the expanded list of advancers.
In all, these elimination rounds were superb, approaching the level of a final, as three area records and an additional three national records were surpassed. So well did the competitors embrace the excellent jumping runway that eight of the twelve finalists reached the automatic qualifying mark using only a single attempt.
The best performance of the day came from Cuban-born Magdelin Martinez of Italy with a NR 14.81, followed closely by the season leader and title favourite, Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia, at 14.71.
Cuba's Mabel Gay leaped 14.57 for a new Central American and Caribbean record, only to have Trecia Smith of Jamaica pull even for a share of the record in the second qualifying group. [The third area record of the day was the Oceania standard of 13.31 recorded by Australian Nicole Mladenis as a non-qualifier.]
In her first global championship for Sudan, Cuban-born Yamile Aldama easily advanced with 14.49, just ahead of the 14.48 of Romania's Adelina Gavrila, a distance also reached by Hrysopiyi Devetzi of Greece.
Others comprising up the elite dozen were Simona La Mantia of Italy (14.45), Sydney bronze medallist Olena Hovorova of Ukraine (14.32), Algeria's Baya Rahouli (NR 14.31), and--just eking through at 14.30--Birmingham silver medallist Francoise Mbango of Cameroon and Natalya Safronova of Belarus.
The two major casualities of the day, both of whom came to Budapest among the season's top ten, were Birmingham finalist Carlota Castrejana of Spain (14.11) and Russia's Yelena Oleynikova (three fouls).
