by Larry Eder
Burkina Faso gets a gold medal from its favorite triple-jumper, Hughes Fabrice Zango.
Hughes Fabrice Zango does a lot of firsts for his country, Burkina Faso.
In 2021, Hughes took the Olympic bronze in the triple jump.
In Doha 2019, Hughes Fabrice Zango took bronze in the World Champs triple jump. Christian Taylor and Will Claye, who had gone gold and silver, told me I should watch for Hughes, as he was real!
On January 16, 2021, Hughes Fabrice Zango set a new world record for the indoor Triple Jump in 18.07 meters, or 59 feet, 3.25 inches, which was held by his coach, Teddy Tamgho.
In Eugene, in 2022, Hughes Fabrice Zango took the silver outdoors in the TJ.
In 2023, in Budapest, Hughes Fabrice Zango took gold, giving Burkina Faso its first gold in a world championships!
Yasser Mohameed Triki, Algeria opened the jumping at 17.35m, as the rest of the field gook a while to get over seventeen meters. Triki fouled in attempt 2, attempt 3 and then passed the rest of the competition.
Hughes Fabrice Zango worked hard, going from 16.99mm to his fifth place 17.53m jump, when he finally took the lead and gave Burkina Faso its first gold medal in the world indoor.
A very pleased Monsieur Zango said: “It’s never easy to win a championship. When I came here I thought I might be able to do something but my season wasn’t what I wanted. Tonight I tried and tried and on my fifth jump it finally happened – doing 17.53 is really crazy. I’m really happy for Burkina Faso, for Africa because we have two Africans on the podium in the final.”
Tiago Pereira, Portugal, won the bronze with a hop, skip, and jump of 17.08 meters. Tiago, getting his first medal told the media: “I feel amazing, my first medal in a majors, in the worlds, with a PB finally my work is starting to pay off. In 2017 when I had been doing the high jump for 12 years and I decided to switch to the triple jump, people said I was crazy. But to jump 17 meters and finally win a medal here is great. I have changed coach and things have been different. I was the best high jumper in Portugal but I would rather be the third best triple jumper in the world than the best high jumper in Portugal but not winning a championship medal. You have to fight until the last jump, it was a difficult event for me, I started with a fall, one safe jump and then a fall. In my last jump, I thought to myself, I will give my everything, and everything gets me a medal.”
