One last jump: 8.02 m and a first gold

The city's leg of the athletics open finished its first day yesterday evening at the city sports centre. In the sixth round of the men's long jump final a 22-year-old from the home team, jumping last, reached 8.02 m to overtake by six centimetres a visiting jumper who had led all the way. It is his first senior gold medal, and the first time he has cleared eight metres.

After five rounds the young jumper, in a red vest, lay third with a best of 7.89 m, seven centimetres behind the leader. The low sun lay across the runway and the 6,000 and more in the stands were clapping in time. He stood at his mark a few seconds longer than usual, ran, gathered speed, hit the board almost on the line, drew up his legs, reached forward and landed in a spray of fine sand. The judge raised the white flag and the screen showed 8.02; the stands were silent for an instant and then gave the longest cheer of the evening. Once the mark was confirmed he crouched beside the pit for some time before running to his coach.

The winner's six attempts

"When I landed the fifth I knew the run-up was right. It only came down to whether I dared let go over the last two strides," he said afterwards. "I had one instruction from my coach: do it the way we train."

According to his coach, they had spent the whole winter on a single thing, the rhythm of the last six strides of the approach. The jumper's old fault was to push harder the nearer he came to the board, lengthen his stride and step over the line. "The foul in the third round was the old problem. On the sixth he did not snatch at it, and the speed came with him."

The winner was born in the old town, joined the city sports school as a long jumper at 12 and moved up to the senior ranks last year. Second place went to the visiting jumper, who had reached 7.96 m in the first round; another home athlete was fourth with 7.85 m.

The meeting ends tomorrow night. The new champion now goes into winter training with the team, and his aim is to make eight metres and more a settled thing in next spring's indoor season. "Once does not count," he said. "I have to jump it a second time, and a third."