Cuba's Jarianna Martinez leads the Triple Jump medallists at the World University Games (© Hans van Kuijen)
On the morning of day 5 of the Universiade in the Serbian capital the half marathon for women and men took place. On a 7km course near the river Danube the Japanese women’s team showed their superiority taking the first 3 places with Chisato Saito taking the title in 1:13:44, followed by Kikuyo Tsuzaki in 1:14:03 and a further 20 seconds later by Sayo Nomura.
The men started half an hour after the women’s start. In this race the battle for the first place was very close. The four first athletes were separated by only 10 seconds. Chinese Zhao Ran was the fastest at the end in 1:04:28. In this race the Japanese team was again successful with Tomoya Onishe finishing second and Soji Okeda fourth. The bronze medal was for the Italian Francesco Bona.
In the women’s Triple Jump, Cuban Jarianna Martinez flew 4 times beyond 14m with 14.40 as her best. Second and third places went to the Russians Natalia Kutyakova (14.14) and Anastasia Matveeva (13.94). A second gold medal for Cuba was for Mailin Vergas in shot put (18.91m).
There was also a second gold medal on day 5 for China. In the 110m Hurdles Yin Jing ran a personal best of 13.38sec.
The remaining victories were for Europe. Ion Luchianov (MDA) won the 3000 Steeplechase in 8:25.79, while Portuguese Sara Moreiro was too strong for her opponents in the 5000m (15.32.78). The last race of the day was the 800m for the Heptathletes. The gold medal went to Jessica Samuelsson from Sweden. With a personal best time in 800m she scored 6004 points.
As usual on the penultimate day of championships the heats for the relays were on the programme. The finals will be held on the last day. Further finals on Sunday are 800, 5000, Long Jump and Discus Throw for men, and for the women 1500 and High Jump.
Hans van Kuijen for the IAAF
