THIS REPORT COURTESY OF THE IAAF WEBSITE
Hernu and Prokhorova lead after Day one in Talence
Saturday 20 September 2003
Talence - Laurent Hernu of France in the Decathlon (4193 points) and Elena Prokhorova of Russia in the Heptathlon (3616 points) have built a strong lead in the first day of the Decastar meet in Talence which started today.
The men’s competition unfortunately lost most of its favourites through fouls (Paul Terek and Stephen Moore) and injury (Jon Arnar Magnusson) before the end of the first day.
The men’s 100m didn’t open on a very high note with none of the contenders able to dip under 11 seconds as their efforts were affected by headwind. The best times were to be found in the second heat where the athletes only had to face a -0,9 m/s wind compared to -1,9m/s a few minutes earlier. Holder of a 10.34 PB, Stephen Moore of the USA was a logical winner in 11.08 (843 points) ahead of Iceland’s Jon Arnar Magnusson, 11.19, and Frenchmen Lionel Marceny and Laurent Hernu, 11.20 and 11.23.
The Long Jump marked another spell of misfortune for Paul Terek after his disqualification in the 110m Hurdles at the World championships. This time the American failed to have a valid jump and was thus left out of contention for the final ranking but decided not to leave the competition for all that.
“I didn’t travel back from the United States just for one event,” he commented. His fellow countryman Phil Mc Mullen narrowly escaped the same fate but had to content with 6.33m, which resulted in two casualties among the favourites for the podium.
The assistance of the music they had chosen seems to have been beneficial as a few PB were set by Frenchmen Laurent Hernu (7.56m) and Romain Barras (7.18m) as well as Eugene Martineau of the Netherlands (7.21m).
The event was very disputed with a tie at 7.59m, between Russia’s Nicolay Tishchenko and France’s Lionel Marceny after two jumps. In the last round Tishchenko momentarily took the lead with 7.52m (on the basis of the second best jump), before Marceny settled the matter with 7.67m. This performance brought 977 points in his tally for the overall lead after two events (1794 points), ahead of Jon Arnar Magnusson (1761 points), Laurent Hernu and Nicolay Tishchenko.
Those three athletes moved to podium positions after the Shot Put as Lionel Marceny dropped to fourth. Magnusson, the only one who threw further than 15m (15.55m) and Laurent Hernu were the only one to be above 2500 points at this stage (2585 against 2536 points).
The High Jump definitively sent the Americans to the lowest part of the rankings, as Stephen Moore failed to clear 2m. What was meant to be the Pan-American champion’s opening height finally became the closing one: it was cleared only by three Frenchmen, Laurent Hernu, Romain Barras and Bruno Lambese who then all failed at 2.03m.
With Magnusson out after 1.91m, Laurent Hernu accumulated enough points to open a 31-point gap over Magnusson. Magnusson then announced that he wouldn’t go further after getting injured in the process.
Huge disillusion didn’t prevent Stephen Moore to take the 400m in 48.44. World university champion Romain Barras (48.80, new PB) and Laurent Hernu (49"15) were the only others to clock under 50 seconds.
At the end of the first day Laurent Hernu leads the field with 4193 points ahead of fellow countrymen Romain Barras (4083 points) and Bruno Lambese (3979 points).
On the women’s side, Kelly Sotherton of Great-Britain was a clear winner of the 100m Hurdles in 13.82 (1004 points) while only a few hundredths separated her followers in the rankings : 14.07 for Russia’s Elena Prokhorova, 14.09 for Talence’s last year winner Larissa Netseporuk of Estonia,14.10 for Irina Butor of Belarus and France’s Marie Collonvillé.
The latter moved to the top with 1993 points after two events thanks to a 1.84m victory in the High Jump while no one else managed to get over 1.81m. 2001 World champion Elena Prokhorova was the closest to do so but finally remained stuck at 1.78m as well as Julie Hollman of Great-Britain and Khazakstan’s Svetlana Kazanina.
The Shot Put brought the best throwers back into contention as Ukraine’s Natalia Dobrynska moved from 8th to 2nd (14.37m), Larissa Netseporuk from 7th to 4th (14.05m) and Gertrud Bacher of Italy from 9th to 5th (13.74m). The temporary lead went to Elena Prokhorova (4th of the shot with 13.45m), with 2678 points, 19 points ahead of Dobrynska and 31 ahead of Marie Collonvillé who couldn’t go further than 11.90m.
There was again a lot of change after the 200m. While Prokhorova increased her lead to 3616 points thanks to a time of 24.45, Dobrynska couldn’t do better than 26.14 and faded again to 8th overall. Kelly Sotherton recorded the best time of the day, 24.04, which lifted her to 2nd with 3556 points ahead of Larissa Netseporuk, 3519 points.
A special guest of the competition, Marisa de Aniceto, the World youth champion in the combined events announced her intention to go for the World best in the women’s decathlon on the last week-end of October in Arles : “I’m not scared by the Pole Vault. Actually, I’ve been doing the event since I was 12. I have a PB of 3.52m,” she said.
Carole Fuchs for the IAAF.