IAAF President Lamine Diack , Tatyana Lebedeva, Jean-Paul Eekhout (© Getty Images)
With a second round 14.85 leap, triple jumper Tatyana Lebedeva sealed her win at this afternoon’s ISTAF Meeting, and with it, sole possession of the one million dollar TDK Golden League Jackpot.
“I am so happy right now,” the 29-year-old Russian told a crowd of more than 50,000 at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, who honored her with a standing ovation. Despite an injury setback serious enough to knock her out of contention for her third consecutive World title in the event, Lebedeva managed to string together a series of victories in Paris, Rome, Oslo, Zurich, Brussels and finally to become only the second solo winner of Athletics’ biggest prize. In 2003. Maria Mutola was the first.
“Right now, I’m not feeling what I’ve won after this competition,” Lebedeva bluntly admitted, adding that she was still stunned by her accomplishment. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe later in the future. But right now, the feeling of the Jackpot hasn’t hit me.”
If she let the Jackpot pressure get to her, Lebedeva hid it well. Composed throughout the competition, she said she felt really well prior to the competition, perhaps ready to approach 15 metre territory.
“At the beginning of the competition, I felt very good in my warm-up. I had good form and good jumps. But in the third round I had a bad jump with bad technique and I had hurt my ankle.”
Lebedeva briefly sat in fourth position after an opening round 13.95 effort, but she quickly took command with a 14.85 leap in the second, suddenly 28 centimetres ahead of runner-up Cuban Yargelis Savigne, the Helsinki silver medallist. Nothing changed in the next two rounds until Yamile Aldama reached a season’s best 14.75 in round five. Injecting a brief moment of drama into the contest’s closing minutes, Aldama improved again with a 14.82 leap, just three centimeters shy of the Russian’s mark.
“After Aldama had her good result,” Lebedeva said, “my heart did jump a little bit.”
But that would be the closest anyone would get between the Volgograd native and her oversized check.
“I have always dreamed of earning lots of money,” she said with an ear-to-ear smile. “And today, I know that I won’t have to worry about the future of my family like my grandmother and grandfather did. But now,” she said, just partly joking, “I’m afraid to go back to Russia. I have many friends but I have some enemies. Maybe I will just let my manager decide what I will do with my money. But I will have a party for my friends!”
While she did share the world lead in the event with Jamaican Trecia Smith –each had reached 15.11 - Lebedeva said she wasn’t particularly pleased with her performances this year.
“Today, the main thing was to win the competition. This season, many of my competitors had problems with injury, and so did I. But next year,” she promised, “I will have better results. I want to break the World record indoors in Moscow at the World Indoor championships.”
“So the results weren’t so good this season,” she continued, “but with the jackpot, there was attention put on the Triple Jump this year. So I hope that now, after winning this Jackpot, more young people will become interested in the triple jump. If it will become more popular, I’ll be really happy.”
She said the thought of winning the jackpot didn’t occur to her until she stood on the runway in Oslo’s Bislett stadium, after she won the Paris and Rome competitions. Nursing an Achilles injury, Lebedeva had to choose where she would focus her attention –competing aggressively at the upcoming world championships and risk further aggravating her injury, or saving herself for the final three Golden League competitions. Already a two-time World champion, Lebedeva chose the latter.
“When I was thinking about winning the Golden League, I thought, ‘yes, this would be cool.’”
While a million dollars richer, Lebedeva season’s not yet finished. She plans to contest both the long and triple jumps at the season-capping World Athletics Final in Monaco next weekend, before taking some well-deserved time off. She’s planning a long Caribbean cruise with her husband and friends in October.
“Maybe during the cruise,” she said, “we’ll have time to think about the money.”
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
