Yelena Isinbayeva, two-time Olympic pole vault champion (© Getty Images)
After Friday for competition to 'warm-up', it's been three days, three World records in Beijing's National Stadium, and in a sport which does not give records lightly, the pace seems incredible.
5.05!
Yelena Isinbayeva proved how hard those records are to come by Monday evening in the women's Pole Vault final. The Russian star, defending her title from Athens, carefully husbanded her energy, passing all heights up to 4.70m, as five other finalists crashed out, and clearing that height on her first attempt.
It would be five vaulters at 4.75m (where Isinbayeva passed) and four at 4.80m (which she also passed), but only American Jen Stuczynski cleared 4.80m, so Isinbaeva took a second pass down the runway to raise her mark to 4.85m. When Stuczynski racked up three misses at 4.90m, settling herself with silver and assuring Isinbayeva the gold, the dominant vaulter of the last five years started the serious work of setting records.
First, on her third attempt, Isinbayeva cleared 4.95m to establish a new Olympic record, erasing the 4.91m (then a World record) she had posted in Athens. Already the bar was higher than any woman not named 'Yelena Isinbayeva' had ever gone. After a brief celebration, the standard was raised to 5.05m, a centimetre higher than Isinbayeva's three-week-old World record.
The first attempt was ugly; the second very, very close. The third was perfect, and the crowd, which had by then hung out every Russian flag available on the Olympic Green, roared. Elated, Isinbayeva executed a flip on the mats, and let the clearance stand as the period on her concise competitive sentence.
American turnaround includes hurdle sweep
Stephanie Brown Trafton's first-round 64.74m Discus Throw stood through five more rounds of throws to give the USA it's first gold medal of the Games, albeit a little-expected one.
The drought broken, the previously snakebitten Americans added a tremendous success in the men's 400m Hurdles, where Angelo Taylor, the 2000 champion in Sydney, stormed down the homestretch to reclaim the title of Olympic Champion. With the first Athens winners defending yesterday, Taylor became the first Sydney winner to claim a title here in Beijing.
Taylor, perhaps fortunate not to have run the 400m heats in the morning (he attempted to earn spots in both events, stymied by the American Trials schedule), pulled away from teammates Bershawn Jackson, who started quickly, and Kerron Clement, who came on late, after the last hurdle. Taylor's mark of 47.25 is his best ever, and he will likely try for a second gold as a member of the 4x400m relay.
Clement, the 2007 World champion, won the silver in 47.98, and Jackson, the 2005 World champion, took bronze in 48.06 to complete the sweep for Team USA, the fifth time the Americans have swept this event in the Olympics.
Panama's first gold in long jump
The men's Long Jump was somewhat more volatile than the women's Discus Throw, but it was the World champion who came out on top, with Irving Saladino building to an 8.34m leap in the fourth round which would stand as the winner. Godfrey Khotso Mokoena of South Africa, left in second, tried mightily to reclaim his lead, but fouled his remaining jumps (as did Saladino, as it happened) leaving the Panamanian the lead and their first-ever gold. Mokoena would take silver with 8.24m and Ibrahim Camejo of Cuba bronze with 8.20m.
Four medals for Kenya between two events
The women's 800m was, as predicted, a romp for Kenyan Pamela Jelimo. Accompanied for the first lap by World champion Janeth Jepkosgei, Jelimo moved into the lead before the 400m mark (55.41) and pulled away on the backstretch of the second lap to win in a new World Junior record of 1:54.87. Jelimo already holds that record, so any PB she runs establishes a new one. Jepkosgei took silver with a 1:56.07, the pair unchallenged until the last strides, as Morocco's Hasna Benhassi came up for bronze. Benhassi was clocked in 1:56.73.
Kenya's romp in the women's 800m echoed a marginally less successful men's Steeplechase. While the dominant nation over the barriers had a representative (Ezekiel Kemboi, the defending champion) close to the front throughout the race, he and his teammates never moved to establish control of the race, leading to the bizarre spectacle of an Olympic steeple final led, at different times, by an American and a Swede.
When the pack arrived at the bell, medals were still in reach of as many as five athletes without the Kenyan shield on their uniforms, and in the mad dash of the last lap, one of them, Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad of France, went stride for stride with Brimin Kipruto and Richard Mateelong to the very end. Kipruto claimed gold in 8:10.34, but Mekhissi-Benabbad stole silver from the Kenyan storehouse in 8:10.49. Mateelong held on to bronze in 8:11.01, while Kemboi faded to seventh.
A passing rainstorm treated the Beijing air to a rinse after competition concluded, so the athletes may expect to continue the run of spectacular weather on the fifth day of athletics competition on Tuesday.
Parker Morse for the IAAF
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