After two events of the Pentathlon, Ukraine’s Lyudmila Blonska led the competition by 78 points from Karin Ruckstuhl, of the Netherlands, a gap which narrowed after the third discipline, the Shot Put.
Not that either of the two leaders finished in the top three of the first competition of the afternoon session.
The victory went to Svetlana Ladokhina, of Russia, who entered the Shot Put with a clear advantage ahead of the rest of the field.
She had a personal best from this year of 16.43m and though she was nowhere near that, she was consistently ahead of the rest, achieving efforts of 14.39m, 14.62m, which was enough to win the event, and 14.59m.
She beat her fellow Russian Yuliya Ignatkina, who was second with 13.81m, while Sonja Kesslschlager, of Germany, was third with 13.69m.
But it was fourth and fifth place which showed how a leader can never expect to stay in control.
On the second of her three attempts, Ruckstuhl landed the put 13.64m, edging her closer towards Blonska, who by then had had efforts of 12.46m and 13.10m.
She at least stayed in charge with her final throw of 13.43m bringing 756, but Ruckstuhl’s 13.64m was worth 770, meaning she was now only 64 away from the gold medal position.
RL
