Report 2 - Day 2
March 8 - 18:00
Nick Davies
reports from Paris
By clearing 5.75m,
a new indoor personal best, with his first
attempt South Africa’s Riaan Botha looked
like outshining his more celebrated countryman
Okkert Brits. Although Brits has cleared 6.03m,
second only to the great Ukrainian Sergey Bubka,
he has a record of fluffing on the big occasion:
he bombed out of the 1994 Commonwealth Games, the
1995 World Championships and the 1996 Olympics.
Brits made a nervous mess of his first attempt at
5.65m, but made sure second time with an almost
comically cautious clearance. Lawrence Johnson
(USA) and Alain Andji (FRA) were more impressive,
both unusual in being black athletes in what is
traditionally a white man’s event. Among the
Caucasians, Maksim Tarasov of Russia and Igor
Potapovich of the Ukraine look dangerous. Both
men getting to 5.80m without major incident.
The blonde Russian
Inna Lasovskaya, who broke three world indoor
triple jump records in 1994, was close to getting
her name in the books again after a fabulous
third round effort of 15.01 - just 2 centimetres
short of the existing mark. Lasovskaya waved her
arms in delight when the mark was displayed but
she could not improve and so missed out on a
World Record Bonus. Lasovskaya, 1.77m tall, has
an excellent third phase reminiscent of the
men’s world record holder Jonathan Edwards,
her only fault being a tendency to sit back on
landing. By clearing a British
record 14.70m with her first effort Ashia Hansen
won silver. Hansen was originally not selected
for Paris after missing the national
Championships. But when threatened with legal
action the British Athletic Federation decided to
include her in the team The statuesque Czech
Sarka Kasparkova overtook Romania’s Rodica
Mateescu in the last round to snatch the bronze.
There must be
something about the 1500m that attracts the more
mature woman. Yeketarina Podkopayeva of Russia,
45 later this year, won the first heat of the
women’s 1500m in 4:11.23. Then out came Mary
Slaney, the 38 year-old who ran her first
international race back in 1973, to make sure she
qualified behind the elegant French runner
Patricia Djate.
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