It was a night when some crumbled under the pressure, and others soared over fantastical new horizons.
As Asafa Powell, the great Jamaican sprinter, flopped on the track after his suspect temperament went awol again, the young British long jumper Lorraine Ugen was bouncing off the walls after a gutsy late jump earned her first world championship bronze medal.
It wasn’t the only British success on the second day of these World Indoor Championships. Tiffany Porter, who speaks with a homely midwestern drawl but represents Britain through her English mother, also took bronze in the women’s 60m hurdles.
The 24 year-old Ugen had advertised her form all winter, winning a bonus of $20,000 for winning all four of the International Association of Athletics Federation’s 2016 indoor world tour events. However in the first four rounds of the competition she was struggling with her run-up and take-off.
In sixth place, and knowing only the top four would get a final jump, she somehow produced a new personal best leap of 6.93m to make her first major podium.
“I’m ecstatic,” she said, bouncing excitedly off the balls of her feet. “My first couple of jumps, I was behind the board so we were trying to find out if I wasn’t running properly, or whether I needed to move it. Eventually we decided to move it in, put one on the board and really put one out there.”
Ugen began her career as a sprinter but switched to long jumping after her mum suggested she give it a try. She still has pictures of her looking “like a dangly spider” when she first started. Now, though, she is getting smoother by the month.
The thrillingly topsy-turvy competition was won at the death by the American Brittney Reese, whose leap of 7.22m – one centimetre short of her US record – took the title from the Serbian Ivana Spanovic, who had jumped 7.07m in the penultimate round.
But the world silver medallist Shara Proctor could only finish a disappointing eighth with a leap of 6.57. The third Briton in the competition, Jazmin Sawyers, was 13th after posting 6.31m.
However the enduring image of the night was of Powell, who had hoped to finally win a world title at the age of 33, flopping again. The Jamaican has a decade-long reputation for choking on the big stage – famously he was once referred to as ‘the big man for a small occasion’ – but he appeared the overwhelming favourite for the men’s 60m after strolling through his heat and semi-finals in 6.44 sec.
Those times, a new Jamaican record, put him fifth on the all-time list behind only Maurice Greene, Andre Cason, Dwain Chambers and Tim Harden.
Yet in the final Powell’s old insecurities resurfaced. The Jamaican, who has never won an individual Olympic medal and has only two individual world championships bronzes to his name, knew his fate early. He stumbled out of the blocks slowly and only a late burst took him into a silver medal in 6.50 sec behind the exciting American prospect Trayvon Bromell, who won convincingly in 6.47.
Ramon Gittens, from Barbados, took the bronze in 6.51.
Meanwhile Britain’s two representatives in the 60m, James Dasaolu and Andrew Robertson, both failed to make it out of the semi-finals. Dasaolu appeared stung and sore after being disqualified for a false start. “It’s extremely frustrating,” he said. “I can’t describe how disappointed I am. I could have gone at least sub-6.50 as I knew training wise I’m within my personal best of 6.47.”
(The Guardian)
