Yordanis Garcia of Cuba in the men's Decathlon (© Getty Images)
Yordanis García of Cuba continued in personal best territory on the second day of the men’s Decathlon, as the third morning session of the 11th IAAF World Junior Championships got underway in extremely humid weather conditions at the Chaoyang Sport Centre.
In the second of three heats of the 110m Hurdles, the 17-year-old World Youth champion, sped to a 13.94 second PB (+1.2m/s wind) for the 99cm height sprint hurdles, ducking under 14 seconds for the first time in his career. The run was the fastest of all the Combined Eventers and garnered the Cuban 982 points. Six events finish, five personal bests Garcia’s tally! His overall total of points - 5184.
With a 15.80 sprint hurdles New Zealand’s Jordan Vandermade, second over night, slipped to overall fourth (4935), while Ukraine’s Dmytro Shcherbakov rocketed up to second (14.41 sec; 5012pts overall), with Russia’s Arkadiy Vasilyev (14.64 sec; 5003pts overall) remaining in third position.
A 42.10m personal best in the first group of the Discus (707pts) continued Garcia’s magnificent Decathlon, and brought his seven event total to 5891pts. Shcherbakov’s best throw in the same group was just 32.31m (510) plummeting the Ukrainian done to sixth overall (5522). Vasilvev moved into second position (5726) thanks to his 42.85m (723), while Vandemade moved back into the medals positions (5701), throwing an excellent 44.97m (766) which was a personal best.
Away from the Decathlon, the highlight of the morning came via some relaxed wins in the men’s 200m, preliminary round one.
Ukraine’s Dmytro Ostrovsky was the quickest with a season’s best of 21.00 seconds but looking the most confident was Canadian Brian Barnett with 21.07. If the way he sauntered down the final 60 metres of the fifth heat is anything to go by, then his 20.70 personal best is living on borrowed time with further rounds to come here in China.
The season’s fastest, but one of the disappointments of the 100m, Willie Perry of the USA, seems to have made a remarkable recovery from the Hamstring twinge which saw him fail to qualify for the final of the dash. Looking anything but injured Perry won the first 200m heat in 21.11, the third fastest time of the morning.
All the eight heat winners looked strong, and Franklin Nazareno of Ecuador who won race three did so in a national junior record of 21.21.
There was little time for rest for last night’s women’s 100m winner, and to her great credit Bulgarian Tezdzhan Naimova (23.60) even looked perky in the opening round of the 200m, and considering her performance in the 100, was impressive in setting the fastest time of the qualifiers.
In the women’s 100m Hurdles opening round, the joint fastest were Christina Vukicevic of Norway and Russia’s Yekaterina Shtepa with 13.51 second runs, while in the Long Jump qualification it was world junior season leader Rhonda Watkins of USA who dominated with a 6.47m leap, 18 centimetres further than her nearest opponent.
The men’s Pole Vault will be fought out by 15 finalists, with China’s Yansheng Yang and Kang Li qualifying the best of the five athletes to clear the automatic mark (5.20m), while World Youth champion and the silver medallist at these junior championships four years ago in Italy, Argentina’s Germán Chiaraviglio also went through to the final thanks to his 5.15m clearance. Chiaraviglio is the world junior season's leader with a personal best of 5.70m.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
