It’s Bubka, Bar None
World Championships
Sergei was sensational.
An injured Sergei Bubka capped the world championships with an electrifying performance Sunday night, winning his sixth consecutive pole vault gold medal - 14 years after winning his first in 1983.
In a show relished by Bubka and the crowd of about 70,000 at Olympic Stadium, he cleared 19 feet, 8-1/4 inches, a championship record and the best in the world this year.
Bubka, jumping sparingly because of the Achilles’ tendon injury that kept him from last year’s Olympics, played a pole-vault chess game with Maksim Tarasov of Russia, and again came out the king.
“It’s not my best victory at the championships,” the 33-year-old Ukrainian said. “But I can say it is maybe the most difficult.”
Before the championships, Bubka had competed only twice since early last year, and he was uncertain he would even get through the meet. He conserved his energy during the final, jumping only when necessary.
No one in the history of the championships other than Bubka has won more than four gold medals in one event, let alone five or six.
“It’s important to be the winner again,” Bubka said. “There is only one person who has done this in six championships. After Atlanta, many said, ‘He’s finished, he’s dead.’ Maybe for that reason, I tried to find motivation and come back.”
In the final event of the 10-day championships, the unheralded U.S. 1,600-meter relay team beat Britain for the gold medal in a season’s best time of 2 minutes, 56.47 seconds.
The relay victory gave the Americans seven golds and a total of 18 medals, both team-leading figures.
The championships finished without a world record for the first time since 1987.
Canada produced a world-leading time of 37.86 in winning the men’s 400-meter relay. Donovan Bailey ran a sparkling anchor leg, easily overcoming a slight disadvantage to Nigeria’s Davidson Ezinwa and winning by three meters.
Germany won the women’s 1,600-meter relay, as Grit Breuer charged down the inside to overcome Jearl Miles-Clark of the United States in the closing strides.
Olympic champion Ludmila Engquist of Sweden swept past Jamaica’s Michelle Freeman over the final barrier to win the women’s 100-meter hurdles in 12.50.
Kenya’s Daniel Komen, the world record-holder at two miles and 3,000 meters, won his first major title, taking the men’s 5,000 in 13:07.38.
In other finals, Olympic champion Lars Riedel of Germany won his fourth consecutive world discus title with a heave of 224-10, Norway’s Hanne Haugland took the women’s high jump at 6-4-1/4 and Spaniards Abel Anton and defending champion Martin Fiz finished 1-2 in the men’s marathon.
Future comes early
An injury-depleted American men’s 1,600-meter relay team made up for the blunder of the 400 squad by fighting off a powerful British challenge and winning the world championship title Sunday for the third time in a row.
Even without world and Olympic champion Michael Johnson and world record-holder Butch Reynolds, the foursome ran the fastest time of the year and made sure Britain went home without a gold medal for the first time in the history of the championships.
“Not bad for three young guys and one old man,” said Antonio Pettigrew, the veteran of the group at 29 and a 1991 world champion in the event. “These guys are the future. We’ve got three young guys running with us. There was so much pressure on them.”
Their victory before 70,000 fans in Olympic Stadium came one day after the 400 team botched its first handover in the opening heat and went out without three of the runners touching the baton.
Two fail drug tests
Russia’s Olimpiada Ivanova, silver medalist in the women’s 10,000-meter walk, tested positive for steroids and became the second athlete stripped of a medal, the IAAF said.
Another Russian, 800-meter runner Liubov Tysoma, also tested positive for the steroid stanozolol.
“The athletes have been disqualified and their competition results nullified,” a statement said. “The athletes will be banned from competition for a period of two years from the date of the offense.”