Fabrice Lapierre long jumps into historyArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment By Mike Hurst
July 06, 2009 12:00am
IT was a great step for Australian athletics and a giant leap for Sydney’s “Fabulous” Fabrice Lapierre.
The Mauritius-born, Quakers Hill-bred long-jumper went further than any Australian when he jumped 8.57m to defeat the Beijing gold and silver medallists yesterday.
The leap to win the Madrid Grand Prix would have claimed a medal at every Olympics and world championships ever held.
But it was such a near thing after he fouled his first two jumps and was facing sudden-death elimination if he didn’t register a big jump on his next attempt.
He responded like a true champion, leaping a massive 8.57m (wind assistance 3.6m/s) to grab the lead and confirmed that with a wind-legal personal best 8.35m (1.3m/s) on his next. “It was a sensational competition,” Lapierre, nicknamed Fab, told The Daily Telegraph.
"It’s a funny story. I just flew in from America two days ago and they lost my bags in transit. I just got them back today, but I’ve been wearing the same clothes the last two days and I haven’t been able to train or anything. My spikes and everything were in the lost bags.
“So I opened with two fouls on the first two jumps and I had to make the third to get into the final and I jumped the 8.57m.”
That was good enough to knock the wind out of Olympic silver medallist, South Africa’s Godfrey Khotso Mokoena (African continental record 8.50m, +1.3m/s) and Olympic gold medallist and defending world titleholder, Panama’s Irving Saladino (8.43m, +4.0m/s).
Another Australian, 21-year-old Brisbane law student Mitchell Watt, placed fourth with a huge leap of 8.38m (+2.8m/s) and he also had a wind-legal personal best of 8.34m.
Lapierre and Watt’s best wind-legal jumps would have been good enough to win a medal in every Olympic Games in history, so it is now clear Australia is building towards a twin medal assault at the 2012 London Olympics.