by Stuart Weir
Marcell Jacobs, Olympic gold medal, 100 meters, World Indoor Championships, 60 meters gold medal, photo by Getty Images for World Athletics
Saturday night in Belgrade
The second evening of the World Indoor Championships was one of the best sessions of athletics that I have been privileged to watch. Every event was high in quality, drama, and intrigue. Sprints, middle-distance, 2-lap 400s, hurdles, throws, vaults. Champions proved their mettle, champions were beaten. The arena was not full but it was the best crowd of the week.
The program started with the medal ceremony for the women’s high jump. It was no surprise that Yaroslava Mahuchikh was the winner, but standing for the national anthem of Ukraine had an extra poignancy tonight.
Sandi Morris, photo by StarGazerPix, via Peacock TV
The first event saw the reigning World Indoor champion, Sandi Morris, win the women’s pole vault with her friend, training partner, and Olympic champion, Katie Nageotte, second.
Mariano Garcia (Spain), who has been dominant this season just held off Noah Kibet and Bryce Hoppel, to claim the 800m crown.
Damian Warner said at the pre-event press conference that his narrow defeat in the 2018 World Indoor heptathlon has been eating away at him and he was really motivated to make amends. He went into the final event in second place but did enough to win gold.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo, gold medalist, 400 meters, photo by Getty Images for World Athletics
The only real question in the W 400 was whether Shaunae Miller-Uibo’s long legs could cope with the tight bends of an indoor track that seemed to suit Femke Bol’s body shape more. From the outside lane, Miller-Uibo was ahead at the break and held on to win by 0.26 of a second in 50.31.
Jereem Richards – more often a 200m runner – took the men’s 400 in a championship record of 45.00 with 0.05 seconds to spare over Trevor Bassett.
Gudaf Tsegay also ran a CR of 3:57.19 to win the women’s 1500 in an Ethiopian 1-2-3.
With world leader and former outdoor World Champion, Danielle Williams, having crashed out in the morning prelim, the race seemed wide open. The top four dipped under 8 seconds with the surprise winner, Cyrena Samba-Mayela, a 21-year-old French woman of Congolese descent, who set a new French indoor record of 7.78.
Same track, same lane but what a different outcome for the Kambundji sisters. Almost 24 hours after Mujinga’s surprise win in the 60m, sister Ditaji started well but hit the third hurdle and crashed to the floor. What a difference a day makes.
Ryan Crouser was surprisingly beaten in the shot by Darlan Romani (Brazil) – 22.53m to 22.44m
Then in the final race of the night it took an age – much longer that the race – to determine that the winner of the men’s 60m was Marcell Jacobs (6.407) from Christian Coleman (6.410). Jacobs surprised everyone but himself when he won the Olympic 100m in Tokyo. He continues to impress.
