World Athletics Championships 2023: Yulimar Rojas wins nervy triple jump gold after struggling through final
The Venezuelan retains her world title with a 15.08m final jump after a difficult evening in which she barely made the top eight cut.
Athletics
Olympic champion and world record holder Yulimar Rojas had to dig deep.
After a completely uncharacteristic off-day for the Venezuelan, she found something extra on her final jump to claim the women's triple jump crown at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, on Friday evening (25 August).
Rojas, who looked flustered all evening and appeared to have her regular stride thrown off, had only barely made the top eight jumpers with a 14.33m second jump and fouled the first two of her last three jumps, leaving her in a precarious eighth place ahead of her final attempt.
However, she finally found the run-up that had deserted her all evening to put in a fair jump of 15.08m, well short of her usual best but enough to take the lead. After picking herself up from the sand pit, the Venezuelan waited for her result before laying down on the track and taking a huge sigh of obvious relief.
From there, it was a nervous wait to see if anyone else would surpass that mark – which nobody did.
Ukraine's Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk had recorded 15.00m on her first jump, which held as the leading mark until Rojas's successful final jump and was enough to win her silver.
When Bekh-Romanchuk's final jump was confirmed as a foul, Rojas set off on an emotional run down the track in celebration before breaking into tears, aware of just how close she had come to losing her world title.
“It has been a very tough competition for me, but not physically but psychologically," Rojas told Spanish TV afterwards.
"I knew I had my jump in my legs and I just had to focus. In the last jump I knew that it was the last chance, that there was no tomorrow. Only different athletes who feel the conviction in themselves can achieve this.
"My heart was pounding before the sixth jump but I knew I wasn't leaving here without my title. After I got it, I just went blank."
Leyanis Pérez Hernández of Cuba took bronze on 14.96m while Thea Lafond of Dominica set a new national record 14.90m to finish fourth.