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Rojas and Barshim triple in Eugene

In the country of the “triple-double”, statistical performance of basketball, the Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas in the triple jump and the Qatari Mutaz Essa Barshim in the high jump made a “double triple” by winning a 3rd consecutive world title Monday in Eugene (Oregon). ).

Athletics, like the NBA, loves numbers, series, records. Two of his greatest champions offered him something to refresh his statistical books on Monday by stretching their reign.

Almost at the same time, and about twenty meters apart, Rojas and Barshim again dominated their competitors in a world final after 2017 in London and 2019 in Doha.

As usual, the Venezuelan did not stretch the suspense, achieving from the second jump a performance of 15.47 m (1.9 m / s of wind), the 6th best of all time (five out of six belong to him), to beat Jamaican Shanieka Ricketts (14.89m) and American Tori Franklin (14.72m).

The tall athlete (1.92 m) with short dyed blond hair, a specialist in show based jumps to fall from her chair and small dance steps, thrilled the crowd with a biting attempt a priori close to her record of the world, established in March in Belgrade (15.74 m).

— “Great things await me” —

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“The wind disrupted my warm-up, I wanted to go further but I’m happy to be back in this beautiful stadium. I hope to continue to string together titles for my country,” she said.

“I remain very focused to continue to give the best of myself and to prepare myself as best as possible to continue to arrive in the championships in this form. I know that I still have a lot to give and that great things await me,” she added.

At 26, the Venezuelan from a disadvantaged background in Altavista, a sector of the “barrio” (working-class district) of Pozuelos, in the suburbs of Puerto La Cruz, dominates her discipline even though she has already won twice. Olympic gold (2016 and 2021).

The athlete, who lives and trains in Spain under Cuban Ivan Pedroso, will only regret not being able to also compete in the long jump in Eugene, because his successful qualifying performance in June was invalidated for non-compliant shoes.

For his part, Mutaz Essa Barshim managed a perfect competition by crossing all his bars on the 1st try up to 2.37 m.

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“The hat-trick has never been done before, it’s a very nice statistic. I want to achieve great things, I want to be the high jumper who makes history. I competed little but I worked a lot for eight months even if after Tokyo it was hard to find the motivation”, commented Barshim.

The filiform Qatari has long remained under threat from the devilish South Korean Sanghyeok Woo (silver with 2.35 m), who came close to crossing 2.39 m.

With his energy, the world indoor champion conquered the crowd of connoisseurs, who chanted “Woo! Whoa! Wow!” on each attempt.

But Barshim remained the boss after his 2021 Olympic title, which he shared with the Italian Gianmarco Tamberi, 4th on Monday behind Andriy Protsenko, who brings with the bronze the first medal of these championships to Ukraine.

The jumper from Kherson (south) was only able to leave his country, invaded in February by Russia, in April with his wife and two children, heading for Portugal, Spain and then France. He hopes to reach Poland by returning from the United States.

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