2018 Ostrava Diary: Echevarria leaps to 8.66m and Barshim clears 2.38m

OSTRAVA (CZE, Jun 13): Despite cold weather and rain which affected the whole meet Juan Miguel Echevarria produced another spectacular series in the long jump at the Ostrava Golden Spike, surpassing Ivan Pedroso’s 20-year-old meeting record of 8.35m with his four valid jumps. In total 4 Meet records and a world lead in the 3000 m were registered before a crowd of 10 000. Echevarria began his series with 8.40m before improving to 8.54m and then 8.66m, both wind-legal PBs and the latter moving the 19-year-old to equal tenth on the world all-time lists. After passing his fourth round attempt, Echevarria went out to 8.54m against a 1.6 m/s headwind in the fifth round before concluding his series with a big no-jump. South Africans Luvo Manyonga (8.31m) and Ruswahl Samaai (8.15m) were well-beaten again in second and third. Tom Walsh also smashed the meeting record in the shot put with 22.16m, defeating Michal Haratyk who extended his Polish outdoor record to 22.08m which was also in excess of Konrad Bukowiecki’s Polish indoor record of 22.00m. Czech Republic’s Tomas Stanek produced a big season’s best of 21.46m in the third round to push Olympic champion Ryan Crouser down into fourth with 21.43m. After carrying over failures at 2.34m and 2.36m, Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim cleared a meeting record of 2.38m on his only remaining attempt in the high jump to defeat world indoor champion Danil Lysenko who led the competition after clearing 2.34m on his first attempt and then 2.36m on his second attempt. There was a home win in the javelin for Jakub Vadlejch who came within a metre of his PB with 88.36m in round two to defeat Olympic champion Thomas Rohler (87.28m) while Poland’s Pawel Wojciechowski defeat world champion Sam Kendricks in the pole vault, 5.75m to 5.60m. Despite a slow opening kilometre of 3:08.51, Kenya’s Norah Jeruto won the 3000m steeplechase in a meeting record of 9:11.33 from 18-year-old Ugandan Peruth Chemutai in 9:16.89. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Selemon Barega won a tactical 3000m in a 7:37.54 world lead from Bahrain’s Birhanu Balew (7:38.25) and Haile Tilahun (7:38.55) and teammate Gudaf Tsegay, who also won in Stockholm on Sunday, took another good win over 1500m in 4:02.45 ahead of Sarah McDonald (4:04.41) and Czech Republic’s Simona Vrzalova (4:04.80) who both came away with big lifetime bests. Morocco’s Rababe Arafi won the 800m in 1:59.20 by over a second from Benin’s Noelle Yarigo (2:00.89) with Genzebe Dibaba only fourth in 2:01.51. In the sprints, world champion Justin Gatlin won the 100m in 10.03 from South Africa’s Akani Simbine (10.13), Canada’s Aaron Brown won the 200m in 20.05 from Commonwealth champion Jereem Richards (20.09) and world champion Ramil Guliyev (20.09) while Dafne Schippers narrowly fended off Murielle Ahoure in the women’s 200m, 22.52 to 22.60. Qatar’s Abdelelah Haroun won the 400m in 44.63 by a clear distance from Luguelin Santos (45.43) and Christian Taylor (45.58) and Pascal Martinot-Lagarde won the 110m hurdles in 13.45. In his farewell appearance in Ostrava, Kim Collins also won a special over-30s 100m in 10.41.