Yipsi Moreno of Cuba takes silver in the women's Hammer Throw (© Getty Images)
Cuba's World and Olympic Hammer Throw silver medallist Yipsi Moreno produced the best performance of the ‘Reunión Internacional Villa de Bilbao’ held on Saturday 1 July.
The Cuban star took a more than convincing win with a 74.61m fifth round release, which came just eight centimetres shy of her season’s best. Twice world champion (2001 & 2003) Moreno, the IAAF World Ranked number one for her event had a high calibre including series of four 70m+ efforts: x – 71.07 – 69.65 – 71.70 – 74.61 – 72.30. Her fellow Cuban Yunaika Crawford was a distant second thanks a 69.33 third round throw which was enough to narrowly beat 20-year-old Arasay Thondike also of Cuba whose 69.26 is a new PB (previous of 68.74).
Lucky Bilbao for Martinez
The standout performance of the men’s programme was the Javelin Throw of her compatriot Guillermo Martinez whose 86.09m in the third round was a PB. Martinez produced a fine series of releases with up to five 80m+ performances, as follows: 83.19 – x- 86.09 – 82.87 – 81.70 – 80.84. The third of his attempts represents a new career best by over one metre (85.02 in Havana last 5 May) for the 25-year-old Cuban who had already set a then PB of 84.06 two years ago in the same competition. Martinez’s 86.09m puts him in the top-five on this year’s world list.
Extremely windy 17.67m Triple Jump
In the men’s Triple Jump Cuba’s World silver medallist Yoandri Betanzos made a sole valid jump measured at 17.67m with a huge following wind of 5.4 m/s. The effort was almost a full metre ahead of fellow Cuban Alexis Copello, runner-up in 16.86 (+2.8). The 110m Hurdles was dominated by the Caribbean athletes too in the guise of World Indoor silver medallist Dayron Robles who prevailed again over Yoel Hernandez, 13.46 and 13.63 (+0.6) their respective times. Spain’s Iban Maiza ran a PB of 13.79 while Sydney Olympic champion Anier García could only clock 14.06.
Pedroso approaches 8.00m
Long Jump living-legend Ivan Pedroso is fighting to keep up his impressive record of years surpassing the 8.00 metres barrier. Every season since (and including) 1990 the nine-time (four outdoors and five indoors) World champion has exceeded that measure but he has yet to reach that mark in 2006. Pedroso made a fine step forward in Bilbao by leaping a SB of 7.95 in round 3 in a tailwind of 1.1. His only other valid leap was measured in 7.74m.
Casado returns optimistically
Almost eleven months after his last outdoor 1500m outing in the Helsinki’s World Championship final where he placed a surprise fifth (10 August), Spain’s Arturo Casado made an encouraging comeback at his specialist event, runner-up to Ethiopia’s Kumsa Adugna with a 3:39.44 clocking. The Ethiopian who is the 2006 national champion over 800m and 1500m ran 3:37.75 which is a new PB for the 19-year-old Ethiopian.
The 23-year-old Spaniard declared: “I thought that my late burst of speed in the closing 100m would give me the win but the Ethiopian guy found another gear, changed the pace and I could do nothing to surpass him. Adugna proved to be the strongest. I’m happy as I’ve achieved the qualifying standard to compete at the Europeans although I still have to earn a berth on the Spanish team.”
Casado had been sidelined by an injury which didn’t let him to advance to the final at last March’s World Indoor championships in Moscow. As he recalls, Moscow marked the beginning of a nightmare: “After the Worlds I stopped training for two weeks but in the following months I realised that it had been a rushed return as I suffered a relapse. In the Easter holidays (mid-April) I tried to train hard but that worsened things again and during the month of May when I just could work in the swimming pool, body trek machine and lifting weights because my doctor David López had advised me to stop running totally. I only resumed full running work at the end of May so this 3.39 performance comes after barely five weeks of proper training and it’s a morale booster thinking of the rest of the season”.
In other events, World silver medallist Victor Moya succeeded in the High Jump with a 2.28m first-time clearance before failing three times over a would-be SB of 2.32m. Olympic champion Yumileidi Cumba notched up the victory in the women’s shot put thanks to a 19.28 heave and a 38cm advantage on Misleidis Gonzalez.
Emeterio Valiente for the IAAF
