Women shot put final
Peleshenko dominates women putters
Her hopes for Olympic gold dashed at the last minute in Sydney last September, Larisa Peleshenko got some measure of satisfaction by dominating the women’s shot field as she added this world title to the one she had captured in the 1995 edition of the meet. The 36-year-old Russian was only 3rd after the first round of puts, but got untracked in the second and surged into the lead with a 19.15 effort.
Things got interesting in the third round when first teammate Svetlana Krivelyova (19.18) and then Belarus’s Nadezhda Ostapchuk (19.24) surpassed her. But throwing last in the order Peleshenko upped the ante all the way to 19.52 and would never trail again. She reached 19.51 in the fifth round and closed out the competition with her best of the day, 19.84. The mark went rather unremarked in the stadium, coming as it did as local hero Rui da Silva was winning the men’s 1500. None of the important players behind Peleshenko improved after their brief flashes of glory in the third round, so Krivelyova remained 2nd, Ostapchuk 3rd.
