Event Report - Women's Long Jump - Qualification

Portugese athletics fans can breathe a sigh of relief - gold medal favourite Naide Gomes is safely through to the women's Long Jump final.

Gomes had been favourite to win in Beijing last year, but had a disaster in qualifying with two fouls and a safety jump that proved to be 'too safe', and missed out on the final.

Here she took no chances and opened with a more solid safety mark of 6.60m before improving on that with 6.86m in round two. What made the feat more impressive was the conditions in which she achieved it.

A Helsinki-esque (remember the 2005 World Championships) thunderstorm with swirling winds and cool temperatures only served to complicate the task of qualifying and several leading athletes struggled in the conditions.

However, a few athletes registered solid marks while the track was still dry. With the automatic qualifying mark set at 6.75m, USA's Brittney Reese was the first to book a spot in the final with her 6.78m leap, just as she did in Beijing. However, she will be hoping to fare better in Sunday's final than her fifth-place finsih from the Olympics.

Defending champion Tatyana Lebedeva, fired up after missing out on a medal in the Triple Jump, was the second athlete to automatically qualify with a 6.76m leap.

But only one other Russian athlete will join Lebedeva in the final. European indoor bronze medallist Olga Kucherenko leapt 6.68m to advance, but Russian champion Yelena Sokolova missed the cut in 13th place overall and former Olympic silver medallist Irina Meleshina was well down with a best of 6.39m.

Olympic champion Maurren Higa Maggi made it safely through, getting in her best jumps before the heavy rain fell. But Olympic bronze medallist Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria was a non-starter.

Keila Costa joined Brazilian team-mate Maggi in the final with a 6.66m leap. Turkey's Karin Mey Melis and European indoor champion Kseinja Balta also made it through with respective jumps of 6.67m and 6.59m.

Rounding out the 12 finalists are Teresa Dobija of Poland (6.55m), Nastassia Mironchyk of Belarus (6.55m), Brianna Glenn of the USA (6.53m) and Shara Proctor with 6.52m, becoming the first athlete from Anguilla ever to make a final at the IAAF World Championships.

In what has generally been a very good year of depth for German long jumping, all three entrants failed to progress to the final. Loud supporting rhythmic claps from the crowd continually ended in silence instead of cheers as they struggled to get near the required 6.75m. European Under-23 champion Melanie Baushke jumped 6.32m, Bianca Kappler leapt 6.29m and Beatrice Marscheck managed just 6.19m.

Olympic heptathlon champion Nataliya Dobrynska momentarily swapped seven events for one as she gave qualification a crack, but with a distance of just 6.38m, 25cm away from her PB, the Ukrainian will not advance to the final.

Other notable none-qualifiers include Funmi Jimoh of the USA, Ruky Abdulai of Canada, and Ukrainian duo Viktoriya Rybalko and Viktoriya Molchanova.

Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF