Opening the qualifying session, Italy’s gold medal prospect Andrew Howe became the first competitor through to Thursday’s Final with his first attempt of 7.69 metres taking him just beyond the automatic qualifying distance of 7.65.
A few seconds later he was joined in the Final by John Thornell of Australia with 7.76 and Godfrey Khotso Mokoena from South Africa with 7.67, both from their first round jumps and the three were to remain the only ones to better the automatic qualifying standard.
Narrowly missing the standard, but qualifying among the twelve best performers was Naohiro Shinada of Japan with 7.62, followed by China’s Zherwei Yu (7.52), Jonathan Martinez of Spain (7.48) and Rogerio da Silva of Portugal with 7.47 metres.
