European Athletics (EAA)- News – Women’s jumps: Vlasic reigns supreme; return of Radevica

Croatian Blanka Vlasic was the best high jumper in the world in 2010. Her incredible 34-long winning streak came to an end at the 2008 Olympic Games, but she bounced back in style last year.

 

High Jump

Croatian Blanka Vlasic was the best high jumper in the world in 2010. Her incredible 34-long winning streak came to an end at the 2008 Olympic Games, but she bounced back in style last year. Even with fierce competition from German Ariane Friedrich, who won the 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Torino with Vlasic fading to fifth place, the 27-year-old came back to win at the World Championships in Berlin.

This season was a much better one with Vlasic winning both the World Indoor Championships and the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona. 18 wins in 20 starts is a huge achievement and Vlasic also won seven out of seven Diamond League meets and the inaugural Continental Cup in Split.

For Ariane Friedrich, the 2010 season didn’t go as well as 2009. The 26-year-old just didn’t get around the same heights she did in 2009, but still did well in important competitions. In Barcelona, Friedrich came just within one centimetre of her season’s best 2.02m with a 2.01m clearance, but was still surprised by Swede Emma Green, who had the competition of her career in Barcelona.

26-year-old Green had jumped a 1.98m personal best prior to Barcelona so she wasn’t exactly a medal favourite in terms of results. But she did win the bronze medal in Helsinki 2005 at the World Championships being only 20 years old at the time and therefore had shown that she has what it takes to do well in major champs.

A third time clearance at her personal best height 1.99m in Barcelona ensured her a medal, but she did extremely well to beat Friedrich by jumping over the bar at 2.01m with her second try, another personal best and three centimetres more than her previous best indoors and outdoors.

32-year-old Belgian Tia Hellebaut made an interesting and successful return to the sport after a maternity leave. The 2006 European champion placed fifth in Barcelona, only her third final after coming back.

Pole Vault

There was no Yelena Isinbayeva outdoors this season, so the European championships were kind of open for several athletes to try to go for the gold medal. But the 2010 season was troublesome for many of the top jumpers suffering from injures. 30-year-old Russian Svetlana Feofanova, former World record holder and World champion, was back to her best form and took the silver medal from the Doha World Indoor Championships with a good 4.80m result indoors. Outdoors she only lost once prior to Barcelona and in the end emerged as a clear winner there jumping a 4.75m season’s best and European leader for her second European title.

Feofanova had won her first title in Munich 2002 eight years ago. The other two medals were awarded with surprisingly low result, 4.65m, but the competition for the medals was tight as four athletes cleared this height.

Germans Silke Spiegelburg and Lisa Ryzih went over with their first tries winning silver and bronze medals respectively. Belarussian Anastasiya Shvedova set a national record 4.65m for the fourth place and Czech Jirina Ptacnikova was fifth with the same result.

30-year-old German Carolin Hingst was one of the medal favourites having jumped a 4.72m personal best this season, but only cleared 4.35m for 11^th place in Barcelona following a failure to clear her opening height at the World Indoor Championships in Doha.

The 2009 world champion Anna Rogowska won the bronze medal in Doha, but couldn’t compete in Barcelona because of an injury joining fellow countrywoman Monika Pyrek, the silver medallist in Berlin who could also only manage three outdoors starts before an injury ended her season prematurely.

Long Jump

Ineta Radevica of Latvia.

25-year-old Russian Olga Kucherenko started the 2010 season with a blast claiming the world leader in her first outdoor meet in Sochi with a 7.13m personal best in long jump. She had risen to world elite in 2009 with a 6.91m personal best and placed fifth in Berlin at the world Championships. Following meets, after the big jump in May, didn’t suggest her permanent level would be over 7 metres with results like 6.90m seeming more like her best level in normal conditions later.

Kucherenko did win the Diamond League meet in Oslo with a good 6.91m result in June, but after that her performances were not consistent and she could only place fourth at the Russian Nationals. Two other European athletes, both Russians were over the 7m limit in 2010 in addition to the world leader. 19-year-old Darya Klishina jumped 7.03m national junior record to move second in the world junior all time list only behind world junior record holder Heike Drechsler (Daute at the time) at 7.14m from 1983.

Klishina jumped the big result to win the Znamenskiy Memorial in Zhukovskiy in June, but then was fifth at the Russian Championships and didn’t make it to the Barcelona team.

2006 European champion Lyudmila Kolchanova won the Russian Nationals with a 7.01m season’s best, but was unable to repeat her European Championships performance in Barcelona where she finished in fifth place. In Barcelona, the competition started with a surprise leader after round one. 29-year-old Latvian Ineta Radevica came to the meet with a 6.80m personal best back in 2005 and 6.76m season’s best in June, but took the early lead with a wind aided 6.73 with her first jump.

Where others were far behind their best marks the Latvian was clearly overachieving as she reached 6.87m in round two, just slightly wind aided at +2.1 m/s and was a clear leader at that time. There was still more to come in round four where all three medalists jumped their best mark. Kucherenko moved to third place with a wind aided 6.84m and 31-year-old Portuguese Naide Gomes, the silver medallist from 2006, finally found her stride jumping a 6.92m season’s best, but then came the big surprise with Latvian Radevica being still able to answer with a 6.92m jump of her own, a wind legal one this time for national record and the gold medal at the European Championships.

With both athletes jumping a best of 6.92m in the competition Radevica took the gold having the second best jump 6.87m against Gomes’ 6.68m. Kucherenko remained in third place to grab her first outdoor major medal.

Triple Jump

The women’s triple jump season wasn’t as good as the year before with not a single European athlete coming close to the 15 metre limit this time. 27-year-old Ukrainian Olga Saladuha posted a couple of good 14.76m and 14.78m results for early European leaders in domestic competitions in May and continued her good start to the season with a couple of wins in Europe and then the European Team Championships as well in Bergen.

In a season where only seven athletes made it beyond 14.50m, Russians too were quite with 32-year-old Nadezhda Alekhina leading the way with a 14.77m best wind legal jump from the Russian Nationals where she won with a wind aided 15.00m result.

In Barcelona, Alekhina was very inconsistent first needing three jumps to qualify for the final. Although she did hit a big 14.93 wind aided jump to top the qualification, she couldn’t get near her best results in the final finishing in fourth place with a disappointing 14.45m result.

Saladuha led the competition from the second round in Barcelona finally jumping her season’s best and European leading 14.81m in the fifth round and won the gold. This was the first major medal for the Ukrainian, who had placed fourth in Gothenburg four years ago. The silver medal athlete in Barcelona was a big surprise. 27-year-old Italian Simona La Mantia jumped a good 14.69m personal best in 2005, but could not even break the 14 metre limit 2007-2009 and came to Barcelona having jumped a 14.24m SB in the start of May.

But in the European Championships final she jumped a big season’s best 14.56m with her first jump, enough for the second place.

Russian born Belgian Svetlana Bolshakova set national record 14.55m for the bronze medal, also the first for the 26-year-old in a major championships.

Notable stats:

High jump

New entries on the European all time list:

Tied for 23^rd place 2.01 Emma Green SWE

2010 head-to-head between best Europeans:

Blanka Vlasic CRO – Emma Green SWE 12-0

Blanka Vlasic CRO – Ariane Friedrich GER 1-0

Emma Green SWE – Ariane Friedrich GER 1-0

Emma Green SWE – Tia Hellebaut BEL 1-0

Blanka Vlasic CRO – Tia Hellebaut BEL 1-0

Ariane Friedrich GER – Tia Hellebaut BEL 2-0

Career head-to-head between best Europeans:

Blanka Vlasic CRO – Emma Green SWE 57-1 (only win in Helsinki WCh 2005 where Green was 3^rd and Vlasic didn’t make the final)

Blanka Vlasic CRO – Ariane Friedrich GER 18-5

Ariane Friedrich GER – Emma Green SWE 15-3

Tia Hellebaut BEL – Emma Green SWE 19-5

Blanka Vlasic CRO – Tia Hellebaut BEL 27-8

Ariane Friedrich GER – Tia Hellebaut BEL 6-4

Pole vault

New entries on the European all time list:

9^th place 4.72 Carolin Hingst GER

10^th place 4.71 Silke Spiegelburg GER
14^th place 4.66 Jirina Ptacnikova CZE

Tied for 15^th place 4.65 Lisa Ryzih GER

Tied for 19^th place 4.60 Jillian Schwartz ISR
Tied for 19^th place 4.60 Kristina Gadschiew GER

Tied for 28^th place 4.55 Nikolia Kiriakopoulou GRE

2010 head-to-head between best Europeans:

Svetlana Feofanova RUS – Silke Spiegelburg GER 9-0

Svetlana Feofanova RUS – Lisa Ryzih GER 6-0

Silke Spiegelburg GER – Lisa Ryzih GER 6-0

Silke Spiegelburg GER – Anastasiya Shvedova BLR 2-0

Lisa Ryzih GER – Anastasiya Shvedova BLR 3-1

Career head-to-head between best Europeans:

Svetlana Feofanova RUS – Silke Spiegelburg GER 26-3

Svetlana Feofanova RUS – Lisa Ryzih GER 9-0

Silke Spiegelburg GER – Lisa Ryzih GER 22-6

Silke Spiegelburg GER – Anastasiya Shvedova BLR 6-1

Lisa Ryzih GER – Anastasiya Shvedova BLR 4-3

Long jump

New entries on the European all time list:

21^st place 7.13 Olga Kucherenko RUS

2010 head-to-head between best Europeans:

Naide Gomes POR – Ineta Radevica LAT 3-3

Ineta Radevica LAT – Olga Kucherenko RUS 2-1

Naide Gomes POR – Olga Kucherenko RUS 4-1

Lyudmila Kolchanova – Olga Kucherenko RUS 2-2

Career head-to-head between best Europeans:

Naide Gomes POR – Ineta Radevica LAT 11-3

Ineta Radevica LAT – Olga Kucherenko RUS 5-5

Naide Gomes POR – Olga Kucherenko RUS 10-1

Lyudmila Kolchanova – Olga Kucherenko RUS 13-5

Triple jump

2010 head-to-head between best Europeans:

Olga Saladuha UKR – Simon La Mantia ITA 6-0

Olga Saladuha UKR – Svetlana Bolshakova BEL 2-1

Simon La Mantia ITA – Svetlana Bolshakova BEL 2-1

Career head-to-head between best Europeans:

Olga Saladuha UKR – Simon La Mantia ITA 17-2

Svetlana Bolshakova BEL – Olga Saladuha UKR 4-2
Simon La Mantia ITA – Svetlana Bolshakova BEL 3-1