{"id":329,"date":"2012-06-30T13:28:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T13:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/?p=329"},"modified":"2012-06-30T13:38:06","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T13:38:06","slug":"saladuha-takes-triplejump-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/news\/saladuha-takes-triplejump-title","title":{"rendered":"Saladuha takes Triple Jump title"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Olha<\/a>

Olha Saladuha takes Triple Jump title<\/p><\/div>\n

If there is a perfect way to win a major title then Ukraine’s Olha Saladuha demonstrated it before another superb crowd here in Helsinki tonight as she retained her triple jump title at the European Athletics Championships.<\/p>\n

Saladuha’s first round effort took her 14.99m, the best in the world this year and from that stage of the competition, her rivals were chasing second.<\/p>\n

Talk about delivering a knockout psychological blow so early, but so often jumpers plan it this way.<\/p>\n

It does not always happen in this fashion but Saladuha is in such a rich vein of form that she is on course towards the Olympic Games in London primed to bank more gold.<\/p>\n

Having established the lead – Portugal’s Patricia Mamona was closest at the end of round one with 14.52m which brought her silver – Saladuha made the point of who is boss by leaping 14.84m with her next attempt.<\/p>\n

Her victory came with a distance 22 centimetres further than her season’s best which had been set here in qualifying on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Before arriving in Finland, Saladuha had cleared a best of 14.75m twice in 2012.
\nColumbia’s Caterine Ibarguen had led the world rankings with 14.95, set on home soil at altitude in Medellin in April.<\/p>\n

She has been nowhere near that mark since and Saladuha savoured every moment of being European champion again.<\/p>\n

In the fifth round her Russian teammate Yana Borodina went from 14.15m to 14.36m to take third place.<\/p>\n

But it was all about Saladuha who even had one final flourish in the last round.<\/p>\n

There was no need to rush because she wanted to make the most of the moment.<\/p>\n

She pushed her hair behind her ears, she slapped her thighs, she waited a second, she looked to the crowd, she looked down the runway and then she was off, hurtling at pace and leaping 14.89m.<\/p>\n

A superb way to complete a great day as her victory in 14.99m was the fourth longest in European Championships and her 47 centimetre win beat the record 25-centimetre mark she had set in Barcelona as she became the first to defend the title.<\/p>\n

“I had 15 metres in my mind and that is why I kept trying,” said Saladuha.<\/p>\n

But that might not be far away such is the form she has shown and is taking into London.<\/p>\n

At the side of the track, she went to her coach at the finish and it was questionable over who had the bigger smile.<\/p>\n

It will not always be this straightforward, of course, in the sense of dominating an event with a jump while the others were probably just stretching and waiting their turn on the runway.<\/p>\n

But that is the time to strike – and what Saladuha did tonight was the perfect example of a champion delivering brilliantly in a championship.<\/p>\n

You cannot ask for more than that – even if 15 metres would have made victory ever sweeter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there is a perfect way to win a major title then Ukraine’s Olha Saladuha demonstrated it before another superb crowd here in Helsinki tonight as she retained her triple jump title at the European Athletics Championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,114,238,1,4,252,240],"tags":[66,9,20,483,84,85,251],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fi","category-helsinki-2012","category-news","category-track","category-triplejump","category-women","tag-66","tag-championships","tag-european-athletics","tag-fi","tag-helsinki","tag-olha-saladuha","tag-triple-jump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}