Report11 Mar 2010


EVENT REPORT - MEN's Heptathlon Long Jump

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USA's Bryan Clay in the men's heptathlon long jump at the 13th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics in Doha (© Getty Images)

Bryan Clay is still on his way to defend his World indoor Heptathlon title from 2008, but the Long Jump did not go as planned.

Ukrainian Oleksiy Kasyanov was a clear winner with 7.78m to take the lead in the overall competition with 1912 total points after two events. The American favourite Clay only managed a 7.27m result and although this was less than 10cm off his season’s best, it means that the World indoor record is quite probably already out of reach. However in terms of the whole competition Clay is still well on course to cap another win.

This is mainly because all the other competitors fell back from their best results as well. Also the overall leader Kasyanov was not totally happy with his performance.

“Not bad, but I was expecting more," Kasyanov said. "I could not manage well on the track. I did not find the right feeling for the surface.”

For Clay it seemed that he went too close to the board with his jumps having to adjust too much before jumping and that was exactly how he described his efforts. “I tried to make some adjustments to my marks but I was too close to the board. The jumps were there, but I just was too close.”

Clay now has 1881 points in second place with fellow American Trey Hardee in third having scored 1836p. Hardee only managed a 7.28m performance in the Long Jump and missed gaining import points on Clay.

Roman Sebrle of Czech Republic is in a surprising fourth place with 1745p. The Czech star who was not thought to be fighting for the medals here had a good long jump 7.49m, the second best result of the field. Aleksey Drozdov of Russia is in fifth place with 1737p having jumped 7.29m and Belarussian Andrei Krauchanka is still a bit far from a desired medal with 1711p in sixth place after a 7.38m long jump.

As expected Cuban Leonel Suárez, whose best event javelin is not in the program indoors, is in last seventh place with 1672p and will not be fighting for the medals here. Aleksandr Pogorelov, who appeared to suffer a hamstring injury in the 60 metres and did not start the Long Jump competition.

Drozdov and Krauchanka need to do well in the next two events to get closer to the medal places that their season’s bests suggested before the competition.

Mirko Jalava for the IAAF

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