17.59m leap for Nelson Evora in Leiria (© Getty Images)
On the third day of track and field competition at the World University Games (9), some 3000 spectators came to the Marakana stadium most of them specially focused on the Triple Jump in which World and Olympic champion Nelson Evora of Portugal was competing against Beijing finalist Hector Fuente of Cuba.
Evora started the competition with a leap of 17.09m, but Fuente overtook him in the second round by 4 centimetres. The answer from Evora in the same round looked better but his foot was a few millimetres over the board, and it was not going to be until the fifth round that Olympic champion could take the lead again, and then only by 1 centimetre. On his last attempt Evora improved again to gain the Universe title with a jump of 17.22m.
The victory in men’s 1500m went to Russian Viatcheslav Sokolov in 3:42.49. On the last straight Mohammed Shaween tried to pass the Russian on the inside, but he stepped on the curb and tumbled down. Disappointed he stayed there for minutes. In the aftermath Samir Khadar (ALG) was second in 3:42.50. The home crowd welcomed another medal as the Serbian Goran Nova took the bronze.
The South African, Sunette Viljoen, could not repeat her African Javelin record that she broke in the qualification, but 62.52m with her last attempt was more than enough for gold.
The title in Decathlon went to Belarussian, Mikalai Shubianok, who missed the 8000 score by 40 points.
The 20km Race Walk was held earlier in the morning. The start alongside the river Danube, was at 7.30hrs. Till 10km which they passed in 41:50, a big pact kept together, but from that point onwards Sergey Bakulin set the pace and walked the second half in 39 minutes to finish in a new Games record of 1:20.52.
The other titles today were for Eduard Malchenko (RUS) in High Jump and Yuzo Karemaru (JPN) in 400m. In women’s events titles went to Bintou Fall Fatou (SEN) in 400m, Madeleine Pape (AUS) in 800m. and Vanya Stambolova (BUL) in 400m Hurdles.
The best qualification marks in the morning were set by Yarianna Martinez from Cuba in women’s Triple Jump with 1424m and in 100m Hurdles by Turkish athlete Nevin Yanit in 13.26 sec.
Hans van Kuijen for the IAAF
