Russia’s Tatyana Lebedeva is most certainly the world’s best combination long and triple jumper of recent years, but evaluating those events separately this summer and the 32-year-old has been beaten on each occasion when it really mattered.
In Beijing and here in Stuttgart, in each of those four competitions - Long and Triple Jump in both cities - the Russian has lost out for the ultimate prize to a different athlete. In Beijing her vanquishers were Maureen Maggi (LJ) and Francoise Mbango (TJ).
Here in Stuttgart yesterday, the first day of the World Athletics Final, it was Portugal’s Naide Gomes who topped out the Long Jump ahead of Lebedeva (who finished third). Today in the Triple Jump, while Olympic champion Francoise Mbango this time finished fourth (14.50m), it was the turn of Russia’s Anna Pyatykh to dash the major title hopes of her compatriot.
Lededeva, who in her career has taken the 2004 Olympic and 2007 World titles in the Long Jump and the 2001 and 2003 golds at the Triple Jump, was nearly faced with a second consecutive third place finish. Coming into the last of four rounds, Slovenia’s Marija Sestak’s 14.63 (second round), as well as Pyatykh’s leading 14.78 (third round) headed her. Lededeva summoned up all her energy for one last effort and matched the Slovenian’s best, and by virtue of a better second best effort of the day (14.61 to Sestak’s 14.36) took the overall runner’s-up spot.
On an exceptionally cold, just 12C, windless afternoon, this was Pyatykh’s day at last!
At last? The 27-year-old has been 4th, 3rd and 4th in the past three World championships, and was 8th in Beijing.
In Stuttgart, Pyatykh opened with 14.47 and her third round performance took the title by a margin of 15 centimetres. This was a generally low key event but it is doubtful that Pyatykh will be anything but happy as she counts her $30,000 prize for victory.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
