BEIJING, 18 August 2006 — China’s Huang Haiqiang pulled off a last gasp leap at 2.32 meters to win the men’s high jump and delight the home crowd at the IAAF World Junior Championships here yesterday.
His winning leap was the best by a teenager in the world this year, just one centimeter off the Asian junior record of 2.33 which has stood to China’s former senior world record holder Zhu Jianhua since 1982.
His performance has also elevated him into one of China’s long distance medal hopes for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Despite his relative youth, only seven seniors have jumped higher than the 18 year-old from the eastern city of Hangzhou.
Huang, the 2005 world youth champion, was behind Israel’s Nikki Palli by virtue of having more failures until the deciding height but when Palli failed his third and final attempt at 2.32, Huang grabbed his chance to win China’s first high jump gold at this level.
“Tonight, I give myself 11 out of 10,” said a happy Huang.
“I had stomach problems this morning but I’ve found out from past competitions that if my stomach is bad before I jump, bizarrely I usually jump well, so I wasn’t worried at all about that particular problem.” “My next target is to win at the Asian Games (in Qatar this December), I think I will challenge Zhu’s record there,” added Huang.
Five of the eight gold medalists yesterday, including Huang, produced the best performances in the world by juniors this year.
Arguably the other best performance came from Kenya’s Caroline Chepkurui, who sped away from her two remaining rivals with 200m to go to win the women’s 3,000 meters steeplechase in a championship record of 9 minutes 40.95 seconds, the second fastest junior time ever.
Chepkurui continued Kenya’s amazing record of having won every men’s and women’s steeplechase title contested over 3,000 meters.
Estonia’s Kaire Leibak won the women’s triple jump with a massive final effort of 14.43 meters with the competition already won. “I’d already won the competition and I was shaking, my arms were shaking, and I was just trying to relax myself. My jump was absolutely fantastic,” said Leibak.
She was considerably calmer when she answered her mobile phone shortly after winning and found Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip offering his congratulations at the other end.
“That was a surprise. I hadn’t even spoken to my family yet,” said Leibak.
Sha Li won silver for China with 14.01.
Two girls ran faster than any of their contemporaries this year.
Croatia’s Danijela Grgic distributed her effort to perfection and moved from third to first down the home straight of the women’s 400m to win in 50.78 seconds while Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer also ran the fastest time by a junior in the world this year to win the women’s 400 meters hurdles in 55.11 seconds. Russia’s Arkadiy Vasilyev had produced a better performance earlier this summer but his decathlon tally of 8,059 points was a championship record.
The remaining two gold medals went to Trinidad’s Renny Quow, who took the men’s 400 meters in 45.74 seconds, and Kenyas Remmy Limo who won the men’s 1,500 meters in 3 minutes 40.44 seconds.
