World champion Eunice Barber with her last round leap brought more than respectability to today’s competition, as the French athlete’s 7.05m was a national record and the second longest jump in the world of the summer.
The 2002 European champion Tatyana Kotova of Russia had taken the lead in round three with a 6.92m performance which improved on Barber’s 6.80m effort which had itself come just moments before. Barber had led going into the third phase of jumps with a 6.75m leap from her second attempt of the competition.
Both the protagonists had fouled out on their opening jumps and were easily the best of the eight athlete field throughout, though USA champion Grace Upshaw did produce a respectable 6.60m effort on her fourth and final try for third place.
Barber who produced some last round magic to snatch the World title from Kotova in Paris just a fortnight ago, when she dug out a 6.99 effort, bounded down the runway for her last effort this afternoon in the same determined style, as if she was still living off the atmosphere of the Stade de France.
Whatever Barber’s inspiration it worked, as with an immaculate leg shoot with her thighs drawn tightly up parallel to her chest, she broke the sand at 7.05m to enormous applause from the back straight crowd.
Victory was Barbers with an improvement of four centimetres on her personal best but what must Kotova be feeling having been beaten twice this summer in the last round to major titles by Barber who is essentially a Heptathlon specialist. We will never know unfortunately as all the athletes failed to exit via the Mixed Zone and so never gave their feelings to the media after the competition had finished.
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