byLarry Eder
DMITRIK WORLD-LEADING 2.35 AND A BREATH
AWAY FROM A 241
HUSTOPECE (CZE, Jan 28): It was only the first stop of the 8th
Moravian High Jump Tour, but the follow-up meeting in Trinec Monday evening will
be hard pressed to match the drama and the excellent depth from tonight’s competition
in Hustopece. Both titles were won by Russians–Aleksey
Dmitrik took the men’s competition with a world-leading 2.35, and
Svetlana
Shkolina won the women’s crown with 1.95. One cannot deny that Aleksey
Dmitrik rises
to challenges. Facing a Russian record
2.41m bar in the high jump, and after two mediocre attempts, the Daegu
silver
medal winner came so very close to elipsing Ivan Ukhov 240. Dmitrik’s
winning performance of 2.35 was a
world-leading performance this season and it was a indoor personal
best. The St.
Petersburg resident was perfect through 2.31 during
the evening. A second-attempt clearance
at 2.33 moved him into battle at 2.35 with his remaining rivals,
Jaroslav Baba
and Ivan Ukhov, both of whom passed 2.33.
As the others failed, Dmitrik then succeeded in gritty fashion with a
personal best on his third try to set up the record attempts. Andrey
Silnov finished second with 2.31
although he was not part of the final-height drama. Ukhov and Britain’s
Samson Oni tied for
third, also at 2.31. That mark equalled
the Briton’s career indoor best during a season in which his nation’s
vertical
jumpers have recently asserted themselves in a way befitting an Olympic
host
country. Svetlana Shkolina used a first-jump
clearance at 1.95 to gain the women’s victory at the Hustopecske Skakani
High
Jump competition in the small Moravian city of Hustopece.
The Russian was in a group of four jumpers–with three taking perfect
records for the day into the 1.95 height–but Shkolina was the only one
who
could negotiate the barrier, as she ended the day with three failures at
2.00,
her last one coming very close to success.
It would have equalled the indoor personal best for the Daegu
fifth-placer. Tied for second at 1.93 were Chanute Howard
Lowe of the US
and another Russian, Irina Gordeyeva.
Mariya Kuchina, also of Russia
and who set a world junior indoor record of 1.97 on the Moravian Tour
last
year, was fourth, also at 1.93.The bronze medallist at the Berlin World
Championships in 2009, Germany’s
Ariane Friedrich, began her long comeback after a 16-month hiatus after
an
Achilles operation. Her first attempt at
her opening height of 1.84 seemed tentative and was not successful, but a
determined second jump was good. At
1.87, Friedrich’s third jump appeared
good. Only an errant heel clipped the
bar at the final moment and brought her day to an end. Coach/manager
Guenter Eisinger was pleased
afterwards. “Her best jump in training
until now had been 1.80. She needs to
get the feeling of jump back in her system, and to regain consistency.
Now we have time [in preparing for London]. It’s better not to hurry
and to go step by
step.”
Complete results can be found at http://skakani.cz/vysledky/
