With the title almost in her pocket as she was the only athlete capable of exceeding 15 meters (in her first attempt, the third and the fifth), Rojas achieved the record in the sixth and final jump to sign up for her third indoor world championship, after the achieved in Portland-2016 and Bimingham-2018 (in 2020 there was no championship due to the pandemic), AFP reported.
With that jump of 15.74 m at the Stark Arena in the Serbian capital, the Venezuelan improves her previous world record by 7 centimeters (15.67), obtained at the Tokyo Games in 2021, where she won the gold medal and She surpassed the historical mark that the Ukrainian Inessa Kravets (15.50 m) had held since 1995.
Rojas (who has not lost in a major international competition since the Colombian Caterine Ibargüen defeated him in the Rio-2016 Games) also had in his possession the best historical mark on the indoor track since he jumped 15.43 m achieved in Madrid in February of 2020.
Trained by Cuban Iván Pedroso, Olympic long jump champion (2000), the Venezuelan (26 years old and 1.02 m tall) successfully combines excellent physical qualities with perfect technique.
NEW INDOOR WORLD RECORD AND FIRST WORLD TRIPLET IN HISTORY!
⏩1️⃣5️⃣.7️⃣4️⃣⏪
✔️ 15.19
❌
✔️ 15.04
❌
✔️15.36
✔️1️⃣5️⃣.7️⃣4️⃣🇻🇪 🥇🥇🥇 + 🥇🥇 pic.twitter.com/cHJBQe1EOl
– Yulimar Rojas (@TeamRojas45) March 20, 2022
Raised in Altavista, a disadvantaged neighborhood of Puerto La Cruz, a coastal city 300 km east of Caracas, the FC Barcelona athlete was chosen the best of 2020 by the International Federation after breaking the indoor record.
The absolute superiority of the Venezuelan in this discipline, of which she is also a double outdoor world champion (2017 and 2019), was once again in evidence, distancing the silver medalist, the Ukrainian Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk, by one meter ( 14.74m).
After Yaroslava Mahuchikh’s high jump gold on Saturday, it is the second medal for the Ukrainian delegation, made up of only six athletes in Belgrade due to the war situation in this country after being invaded by Russia.
Jamaican Kimberly Williams completed the podium, with a best jump of 14.62 m.
The Spanish Ana Peleteiro, third in the last Tokyo Games, achieved a best jump of 14.30 m, her best mark of the season, but insufficient to fight for the medals and far from the 14.87 m that gave her the olympic bronze.
Barega prevails in the 3000 m
Closer was the Cuban Liadagmis Povea, who finished in fifth place with a best jump of 14.45 m.
The morning session of the last day of the championship had a bittersweet taste for two other Olympic champions. The Italian Gianmarco Tamberi, who shared gold in Tokyo in the high jump with the Qatari Mutaz Barshim, was looking for a second indoor world title, after the one obtained in 2016, but had to settle for bronze (2.31 m), behind the Swiss Loïc Gasch (2.31) and the new champion, the South Korean Woo Sanghyeok (2.34 m).
Things went better for the 22-year-old Ethiopian Selemon Barega, 10,000m Olympic champion, who this Sunday impressed in the 3,000m final by winning with a time of 7:41.38, beating his compatriot Lamecha in the sprint Girma (7:41.63) and Briton Marc Scott (7:42.02).
The championship will end in the afternoon with the last finals, among which the pole vault final stands out, in which the Swedish Armand Duplantis will seek a new world record after having recently left the mark at 6.19 m.
www.eluniversal.com
