Yulimar Rojas She finished second in the triple jump final at the Oregon World Cup. This is perhaps the most remarkable thing about a competition in which two types of athletes converged: the “humans”, who fought for silver and bronze and reached 15 meters, and the Venezuelan “goddess”, who was chasing a new world record and approaching this almost mythological barrier of 16 meters.
“Yuli is fine. She is fine and fast. Let’s see what she can do,” he said backstage the day before. Ivn Pedrosothe man who chiseled in fire the endless body (1.92) of the American South, who cherishes a prodigious physique and a privileged head where the tenderness of a young girl and the ambition of a warrior mingle.
Rojas started the contest with a jump of 14.60 (+0.3), a more than respectable distance in the legs of any other triple jumper on the planet but in his case it’s an almost disposable mark. After get out of the pit and shake off the sandthe Venezuelan pedal calms down in the stands.
The fact is that the Jamaican Shanieka Ricketts, who had already finished second at Doha 2019, soared to 14.89 (+1.7) on her first attempt, leading the race after the first lap. A distance that finally tipped her silver medal again – the American closed the podium Tori Franklin con 14.72-.
The fourth jump of Yulimar Rojas, very long but useless.
The “joke” lasted a breath, the time it took Yuli to put things in their place with a second jump of 15.47 (+1.9), the sixth longest of all time and the second in the history of the world championships after the old world record (15.50) of Inessa Kravets and Gothenburg 1995.
Gold in the pocket, a new final begins for Yulimar. The Venezuelan went through the pits and spoke at length with Pedrosowho gave him directions for the remaining four jumps.
The third was also good (15.24) but it was in the fourth that he caressed his admitted goal, that of a new world record. In reality, Yuli came out of the pit like a spring celebrating a jump that seemed very long to me.
The fact is that walked on the board clearly (12.2 centimeters) and invalidated a flight that was around 3:75 p.m. The wind was also excessive (+3.4), so it would not have been valid for record purposes.
Eight of the ten best jumpers of all time
After a draw second in the fifth, soared to 15.39 meters (+0.5) in the sixth and final despite a poor heel, capping another day at the office with two of the ten longest jumps in history.
Rojas already has eight of the ten best jumpers of all time. Only the aforementioned Kravets (15.50) and the Cameroonian Franoise Mbango Etone (3:39 p.m.), double Olympic champion, they resist the onslaught of the Venezuelan, that it is only a matter of time before they are “erased” from the statistics.
Yuli Adams adds six world titles between the outer and inner track and at 26 he is dangerously close to Ivn Pedroso’s nine, something the Cuban legend of world length has always boasted aboutwhich motivates her pupil who praises her to beat this record.
We’ll see what Rojas is capable of, has not lost a World or Olympic competition since Rio 2016In the next few years, but today there are only two sure things in world athletics: one is that the track is 400 meters long and the other is that triple gold goes to Yulimar Rojas . And who could not compete in length…