Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela made dominance in the triple jump often look easy through world championship wins, as well as a world record performance to win her first Olympic gold medal in 2021.
Friday at the World Athletic Championships in Budapest, she was in a struggle that came down to the wire.
Rojas’ final jump of 15.08 meters lifted her past Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk to win her fourth outdoor world championship in the triple jump. Cuba’s Leyanis Perez Hernandez claimed bronze with 14.96 meter effort.
Romanchuk put up a leap of 15 meters on her first jump of the competition to take the lead while Rojas struggled. She fouled on her first jump and put up a jump 14.33 meters on her second. She had sweat out other attempts to lay in 8th place through three attempts to sneak past the cut line for the final three attempts of the competition.
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Yulimar Rojas es nuevamente campeona mundial 🥇🏆
— Comité Olímpico Venezolano (@OfficialCOV) August 25, 2023
Con un último salto de 15.08 m, la reina del triple salto consiguió su cuarto mundial a cielo abierto en Budapest 2023.
Londres 2017, Doha 2019 y Eugene 2022 fueron las primeras tres joyas de la corona para Rojas. pic.twitter.com/exO7L7t6xk
Rojas would foul her fourth and fifth attempts still stuck in eighth, and would be first jumper to make her final jump. Her streak of six straight world championship wins, both outdoor and indoor, came down to her last try.
Before taking off, the 2020 Outsports Female Athlete of the Year fired herself up similar to how she did in Tokyo two years ago and earned the world record on her final attempt. While not getting near her 15.67-meter outdoor world record mark, she was able to grab a lead the rest of the field could not take away.
“This is my seventh world championship gold in a row, but this is the most special of all of them,” she said to reporters after the event. “My last attempt was proof of the hard work I have done, my mental state and my self-confidence. I didn’t care about the distance, the only thing I had in mind was to win the gold.”
