It took 19yearold Svetlana Radzivil only five jumps to claim her country’s first gold medal of the championships here in Beijing.
Radzivil’s second time clearance at a new national junior record of 1.91m proved enough to claim the women’s High Jump World Junior title as pre-event favourite and World junior leader Xingjuan Zheng had three failures at that height.
The Chinese champion claimed silver with a first time clearance at 1.88m but it was more of a disappointment for the 17-year-old who was looking forward to emulate her team-mate Haiqiang Huang, winner of the men’s contest.
Yekaterina Yevseyeva of Kazakhstan and Annett Engel of Germany shared bronze at 1.84m both athletes maintaining a clean sheet up to then.
Their bronze was awarded on count-back as another three athletes also cleared 1.84m tonight but none at the first attempt.
The Asian Indoor bronze medallist, Radzivil had already taken part in two World Junior Championships before Beijing, her first experience at the age of 15 in Kingston 2002, although she never managed to make the final at any of them.
Tonight all 12 finalists opened at 1.75m with only seven athletes remaining in contention after the third height of 1.84m.
Only Zheng and Radzivil cleared 1.88m with the Uzbek who had cleared 1.91m indoor this year managing this height for her second time in her career.
Although supported by the local crowd, Zheng who will still be eligible to compete in Bydgoszcz 2008 World Junior Championships, had three misses at 1.91m.
