Izabela da Silva celebrates her discus title at the IAAF World Junior Championships, Oregon 2014 (© Getty Images)
Izabela da Silva of Brazil caused something of an upset when taking the discus with a massive personal best of 58.03m.
Da Silva – who was only fourth on the 2014 world list after her national junior record of 55.96m in Thursday’s qualifying competition – unleashed a world-junior-leading 58.03m in the second round to take the lead from US junior champion Valarie Allman, who had opened with 56.75m.
It was an improvement on her own national junior record by more than two metres.
Allman had other throws farther than 56 metres but could not threaten the Brazilian, who produced two more efforts beyond 57 metres – 57.39m and 57.12m in the third and fourth rounds – to seal her historic victory.
Da Silva joins 2010 shot put winner Geisa Arcanjo and namesakes 1994 20km road race winner Clodoaldo da Silva and 2012 pole vault gold medallist Thiago da Silva as Brazil’s only world junior champions.
India’s Navjeet Kaur Dhillon opened her series with a personal best of 54.08m and then improved further to 56.36m to get a rare medal for India, only the country’s second medal in the history of the championships, 12 years after Seema Antil had won a bronze in the same event.
China’s 2011 world youth silver medallist Yan Liang came close to Dhillon in the final round with 56.27m, but had to settle for fourth.
Javier Clavelo Robinson for the IAAF
