Beijing Olympic – Women’s Long Jump: Maggi ends Lebedeva’s reign
Maurren Higa Maggi won Brazil’s second gold medal of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games when she leaped a season’s best of 7.04m to win the Women’s Long Jump.
In doing so, she ended Russian Tatyana Lebedeva’s dominance in the event. The Athens 2004 champion, who won three of the last four world championships, took silver.
Lebedeva had been in second place all through the competition with 6.97m. After four no jumps, the best she could manage with her last effort was a season’s best 7.03m, a centimeter short of Maggi.
The bronze medal went to Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria, who jumped a personal best 6.91m.
Maggi was leading from the first jump and no-jumped four times in the competition, only making 6.73m with her fifth effort, but she already had gone long enough to win the gold.
Okagbare was the most consistent of the jumpers, leaping a personal best with her first jump and then making all but her last attempt.
Athens 2004 Heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft of Sweden, who had decided to concentrate on the Long and Triple Jumps in Beijing 2008, finished ninth on 6.49m.
(Source: en.beijing2008.cn)