Dragila
produces a Diamond Performance with a jump of 4.72 metres, as Michael Johnson makes his
Swedish Farewell
Chris Turner for the IAAF
17 July 2001 – Stocholm - In damp
overcast weather conditions in Stockholm’s 1912 Olympic stadium Michael Johnson made
his Scandinavian farewell in uniquely Swedish fashion running the final (400m) leg of the
Swedish relay (100m, 200m, 300m and 400m) the final event at the 35th edition
of the DN Galan Grand Prix, Tuesday 17th July. Up against national squads from
Australia, Poland, Sweden and an international combined team, Johnson running for a Nike
team took over the baton with a clear lead and eased over the finish line about 40 metres
ahead of the rest (winning time 1:49.09mins).
Away from Johnson’s goodbyes the undoubted highlight of the evening was a wonderful women’s pole vault which ultimately produced a new stadium record of 4.72 metres, earning the winner USA’s Olympic champion Stacy Dragila a one carat diamond ($10,000) for her troubles. It was a close fought contest which was interrupted early on when the competition was halted so that the opening ceremony could be held! When battle was rejoined European record holder Svetlana Feofanova (second 4.62m) and Monika Pyrek of Poland (third 4.57m) provided stiff resistance for the American world record holder who having cleared 4.72m, had three failures at 4.82m which would have been a new world record. Only the first of these attempts were even a little close but Dragila was in no doubt that more was still to come -
"I have been jumping against Pyrek and Feofanova all season and so I knew this would be a tough today and that it would go down to the wire to win the diamond.
I had the height with my first attempt at 4.82m but I just did not have the positioning over the bar. I’m just not getting in the pit properly right now. I kind of had an injury in Nice, my neck cramped up and it went down to my left hamstring and so I have lacked a lot of technical training recently and I think it showed tonight. But that gives me confidence because I know that there is still more to come. I think I have proved now I can jump well in Europe and I am not just a "States" kind of girl" smiled a delighted Dragila.
With four world class home favourites Kajsa Bergqvist (women’s high jump) Stefan Holm and Staffan Strand (men’s high jump) and Christian Olsson (men’s triple jump) for the capacity stadium crowd to cheer the jumping events were always going to be the central focus of attention.
In the men’s triple jump World record holder and Olympic champion Jonathan Edwards was able to see off Olsson who beat him in Helsinki earlier in the season. Olsson who is the current world number two jumped a best of 17.28m in the third round but could not cope with Edwards’ response in the fourth which was 17.40m. The wet conditions were not ideal for jumping today but Edwards took heart that he had seen off the very talented young Swede.
"Olsson performed very well tonight as he was under a lot of pressure in front of the "home" crowd. It was a damp night and in these conditions both our best jumps are worth a lot more. I would say that Olsson’s leap was certainly of better quality than the 17.49m he jumped in the sunshine of Crete" said Edwards. He then continued "Yes, I am more than pleased with my jumping especially as I am putting together some very consistent results in the mid to higher 17 m range at the moment which can only give me confidence before Edmonton".
Such was the quality of the fields assembled for both the men’s and women’s high jumps that all 13 men and 8 of 15 women jumpers had personal bests over 2.30m and 2.00m respectively! Women’s world indoor champion Kajsa Bergqvist who hails from Sollentuna a Stockholm suburb naturally received huge support from the spectators and jumped 1.96m but this was not quite good enough to beat Ukraine’s Inga Babakova who also successfully took this height. Unfortunately for Bergqvist, Babakova had cleared the earlier height of 1.93m at her first attempt while it had taken the Swede two jumps to clear and that was the deciding point of this competition on count back.
However, Sweden’s luck eventually turned in the men’s high jump when Olympic 6th placer Staffan Strand took the win with a second attempt clearance of 2.29m to the enthusiastic delight of the stadium crowd who were getting desperate to celebrate some home success.
The men’s javelin was a high quality affair with four men over 84 metres or better. The winner was Russia’s Sergey Makarov with 86.19m who certainly seems to be over recent injury niggles. Impressive in second was Finland’s Harri Haatainen who is one of the two Finns so far selected for Edmonton and whose 86.05m tonight was just 5 cm from his personal best.
The men’s 100 metres which for many years has been one of the highlights of the DN Galan pitching Maurice Greene up against his training partner Ato Boldon was quite a straight forward affair as both Greene and Tim Montgomery who sensationally defeated Boldon in Oslo in 9.84 seconds were missing from this year’s meet. Boldon was the winner in 10.09 seconds (+0.6m/s) heading off America’s Curtis Johnson (10.10) in second and Jon Drummond in third (10.16).
The 110m hurdles went to USA’s Terrence Trammell the world indoor champion who is fast translating his indoor form outdoors. His time here was 13.31 seconds ahead of current world leader Allen Johnson in 13.38 seconds, in what was a very scrappy race with hurdles flying every where.
The women’s 400m metres hurdles saw Romania’s Ionela Tirlea’s continued return to form with a comfortable win over Ukraine’s Tatyana Tereshchuk (2nd 55.29 secs). Tirlea’s time of 54.65 seconds was personal season best.
Strangely there were two quality women’s 200 metres with the best eight times of the two races being combined to decide the Grand Prix points awarded. The winner of the "B" final was Debbie Ferguson of the Bahamas (22.77 secs) and the "A" final was won by America’s La Tasha Jenkins (22.86 secs).
In terms of the distance races the men’s 800 metres was graced by Yuriy Borzakovskiy the world indoor champion and he strode away from the field with about 300 metres to go and never looked like he would be threatened from that point. The winning time was 1:44.80 minutes.
There was a Spanish double at 1,500m and 5,000 with fast victories for Jose Redolat (3:31.21 mins) and Alberto Garcia (13:04.86 mins). However, ‘money was the root of all evil’ for Garcia as he had hoped to dip under 13 minutes but in an effort to win the 2500 Euro lap prize on offer to athletes who ran the each of the last four laps in the fastest times meant that sensible pacing was forgotten and as such he missed going under the barrier by just over 4 seconds.
The women’s 5,000 metres was a classy affair and Edith Masai who has not been selected for the Kenyan team for Edmonton won with 14:45.86 minutes way ahead of compatriot Rose Cheruiyot (third 14:58.72) who is on the Kenyan squad for the world championships. Second