Smith leaps to claim the gold
After just missing out on a medal in Athens last year, Jamaica’s Commonwealth record holder Trecia Smith found something special tonight to claim her first major championships title with a fifth round leap of 15.11.
It was a mark that equalled the best jump in the world this year and the tip of a superb series in which all attempts except her first were beyond 14.50, and two were beyond 15 metres.
Amazingly, it took an injury to get Smith moving. She moved into the lead in the fourth round shortly after appearing to injure her left ankle when taking off on her third round jump. Perhaps Smith, a physiotherapist by training, knows of some special formula.
Whatever, the massage and strapping she applied clearly did the trick, for she equalled her season’s best in the fourth round with 14.91, equalled this year’s world lead in the fifth, and leapt beyond 15 metres again in the sixth.
A former student at the University of Pittsburgh, Smith now lives in north London and is coached by a Briton, Frank Attoh who also trains Yamile Aldama, the Cuban-come-Sudanese who finished just out of the medals here despite finding her best form of the year.
The minor medals went to a 20 year-old Cuban Yargelis Savigne, the Central American champion, who produced four personal bests in her series, including the silver-medal winning 14.82. And to Russia’s Anna Pyatykh, who took the bronze, moving up one place from her fourth place finish in Paris. Her best of 14.78 came in the last round, although she had been in the lead at the half way stage following a second round jump of 14.75.
The Olympic silver medallist Chrysopiyi Devetzi of Greece couldn’t find the magic formula for a second successive year and finished down in fifth with a best of 14.64.
Without Russia’s Tatyana Lebedeva and Cameroon’s Francoise Mbango, we knew from the start that the medal podium would have a different look about it from the last two editions of the World Championships.
In both Edmonton and Paris it was Lebedeva who had stood on top of the rostrum, with Mbango one rung below. But Mbango has been out of form all this season and did not make the final here while Lebedeva only just struggled through the qualifiers yesterday and did not contest the final, no doubt opting to protect the suspect Achilles she injured at Oslo nine days ago.
Aldama led briefly at the end of a lacklustre first round with her best jump of the year, 14.72. It didn’t last long though as two jumps later Pyatykh went three centimetres further. This was the start of the real competition as Savigne immediately leapt out to 14.73, her best ever and good enough for second place.
Smith had opened with a huge foul, landing somewhere around the 15.50 mark, although she took off 27 centimetres over the board. In the second round she cut the sand at 14.67, although she was still having problems with her run-up – this time her toe was 23 centimetres short of the board.
Devetzi also moved up a gear in round two and found her range. Her second round effort landed at 14.64, a distance that would have been good enough for silver in three of the six world championships in which this event has been contested.
At the half way stage only three centimetres separated the top three athletes, and there were only 11 between the top five. But a rejuvenated Smith then got into her stride, moving into the lead in round four and producing her world leading jump in five.
Savigne also improved, jumping into silver medal place ahead of Pyatykh, and although the Russian responded with 14.77 and 14.78 in rounds five and six, she couldn’t reclaim second place.
There was certainly no catching Smith. A left Achilles strain might have meant the end of Lebedeva’s hopes of a third world title but a similar injury sustained by the Jamaican seemed only to inspire her to victory.
Last year she finished fourth in Athens despite jumping more than 15 metres; this time she was the only one to do so and it brought the gold.
