BEIJING: Cuba’s Yarisley Silva needed a jump of 4.90 metres to win a thrilling women’s pole vault contest and claim her first major global title at the world championships yesterday.
Pushed all the way by Brazil’s Fabiana Murer and Greece’s Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou, the London Olympic silver medallist won gold with her third attempt at the winning height before failing three times at 5.01m.
“This was one of the hardest competitions of my career. It was a very close competition with Fabiana and Nikoleta,” said the 28-year-old.
Silva needed all three goes to get over at 4.70 and join an unprecedented seven women going for 4.80.
Murer and Silva cleared 4.85 at the first attempt to ultimately leave Kyriakopoulou with bronze.
With the noisy crowd roaring her on, Silva slid over the bar at 4.90 to win the title.
“This is the result of a lot of sacrifices, hard work and dedication,” Silva added. “Now I want to do everything to get the Olympic gold in Rio.”
Hyvin Jepkemoi maintained Kenya’s monopoly of the 3,000 metres steeplechase when she proved to be tougher than all her rivals in a hard-fought final lap to win the title yesterday.
Jepkemoi, 23, produced a sub-66 seconds last 400 and had to battle off the final barrier against the favourite, Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi, and Germany’s Gesa Krause, to take Kenya’s sixth gold of the Beijing championships in 9 minutes 19.11 seconds.
Ghribi, the runner-up at the 2012 London Olympics and 2011 world championships, had to settle for silver once more as the Kenyan passed on her outside. Grhibi clocked 9:19.24, to Krause’s bronze-winning 9:19.25, a personal best.
Czech Republic’s Zuzana Hejnova became the first woman to successfully defend her 400 metres hurdles title after 14 editions of the world championships when she won gold at the Bird’s Nest Stadium yesterday.
She produced a dominating and controlled performance to come home two metres clear of Shamier Little, the United States champion, in a world leading 53.50 seconds.
Little, the 20-year-old U.S. collegiate champion, took silver on her worlds debut in 53.94, with her team mate Cassandra Tate winning bronze with 54.02.
The threat from Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer vanished at the second hurdle, where the Commonwealth champion blundered and lost all momentum and was never able to get back into the race, trailing home last of the eight finalists.
The 28-year-old Hejnova, drawn in lane five, was clearly in the lead by the time of the seventh flight and held a three-metre advantage into the home straight which was never seriously challenged.