World Youth champions on track in Grosseto

Four World Youth champions from Sherbrooke 2003 started their World Junior campaign on the second day of competition at the IAAF World Junior Championships here in Grosseto.

Brazil’s Julio Cesar de Oliveira was the quickest athlete to advance to the finals as it only took him one attempt to automatically qualify in the men’s Javelin Throw.

Throwing in second position in group A, De Oliveira who is the third best javelin thrower in the world this year stepped on the track very briefly to see his javelin land at 70.36 metres, almost one metre further than the qualifying standard of 69.60.

In Canada last year, de Oliveira claimed a historical World Youth title for Brazil as he upset pre-event favourite Robert Oosthuizen of South Africa with his very last attempt which improved the Championships record to 81.16 metres (with an implement of 700g).

Just minutes later World Youth 2000m Steeplechase champion Ronald Kipchumba Rutto of Kenya took a very comfortable win in heat three of the 3000m Steeplechase in the fastest qualifying time of 8:35.51.

Rutto who is still only 17 years of age and will therefore be eligible to compete in the next edition of the World Junior Championships in Beijing, had set a superb World Youth Best performance in Sherbrooke as he clocked 5:30.27.

Following his race this morning in Grosseto, Rutto was complimented by Brimin Kipruto, the fastest Junior in the World this year at 3000m Steeplechase who was seen dominating his 1500m heat yesterday as he opted for the shorter race in an attempt to “work on his speed looking ahead to Athens Olympics.”

Rutto will step back on track on Saturday to try and add the World Junior title to his Youth gold medal from last year.

It took only three jumps to Elizaveta Ryshich of Germany to qualify for the women’s Pole Vault final. The sister of 1999 World Indoor champion Nastja Ryshich and winner of last year’s World Youth gold medaln Ryshich is amazingly still only 15 years of age and yet she was one of the most convincing vaulter this morning as she cleared 3.95m and was one of only four athletes not to miss a single height.

The fourth World Youth champion from Sherbrooke in competition this morning was Uruguay’s Andres Silva whose memorable win in the Octathlon last year turned him into a national hero on his return to Punta del Este where he lives and trains.

Since, Silva moved up to the Decathlon, the official combined event discipline for Junior athletes and has had to include in his training programme two new events: the discus throw and the pole vault.

And given that Silva set a new Area Junior record of 7446 points in his first ever Decathlon one can expect that Silva has smoothly adjusted to the ten-day event.

In the opening 100m, Silva ran the fastest time of the field with a 10.75 clocking, worth 917 points. With a new personal best of 7.23m in the Long Jump, Silva held on to the lead after two events but after three low 13-metre efforts in the Shot Put the Uruguayan dropped down to the fourth overall position.

Before going into the High Jump and the 400m, the latest of which is by far his best discipline, Silva and his coach Andres Barrios remained confident.

"Everything is going according to plans," said Barrios. "Andres was always going to lose positions with the Shot Put because it's not one of his best events. But 13.23m is a good performance for him and we are very confident for the rest of the competition."  

Regardless of whether he will be successful in Grosseto, Silva is already guaranteed a spot in the Uruguayan team for the Olympic Games in Athens where he will compete in the 400m.   

The reigning World Youth champion was missing in the heats of the 400m Hurdles, the fifth event contested this morning as USA’s Jason Richardson was suffering from a hamstring injury at the time of the US Junior championships and was therefore not selected to compete in Grosseto.

However, defending World Junior champion Louis van Zyl of South Africa was in the starting blocks this morning and advanced to the semi-finals as he finished second in his heat in 51.30.

Van Zyl had been a superb winner in Kingston 2002 as he set a Championships record of 48.89 on the eve of his 17th birthday and at the time had declared his next objective would be the World Junior record of 48.02.

Unfortunately, van Zyl hasn’t been improving as he would have expected and his best time of the year of 49.71 is only the fourth in the world this year and second in South Africa.

“I have had a very difficult year this year. I have had to adjust to a lot of changes in my life and it hasn’t been easy. I have changed school, travelled a lot and competed a lot and it has been quite unbalancing.”

Van Zyl remains nevertheless very confident and after cheering up on team-mate Wouter Le Roux who was second in Sherbrooke World Youth Championships.

“I am still very positive,” said van Zyl. “I feel good, my body has changed, I am stronger now and have to adjust to being more powerful but I feel very good.”

The US colours will be strongly represented in the 400m Hurdles despite the absence of Richardson as US champion Brandon Johnson and the fastest junior in the world this year Kerron Clement looked impressive in this morning’s heats.