Yulimar Rojas breaks the world record for triple jump 'indoor': 15.43 meters

The arena of Madrid was before the Albero de las Ventas, but now that it is down, as are the bulls, there is another arena that shoots, and much, that fills the pit of the Gallur covered track in Carabanchel , where Yulimar Rojas, the Venezuelan athletic star jumps as at home. "It's my house," she says, as usual and, in her sixth jump, she arrives to where none has ever come before, hop, step, jump, fluid like silk, fast, without losing an atom of energy in each impulse, bouncing with force and vigor: 15.43 meters, a record of the seven-centimeter indoor world that erases 15.36 meters from the primate, from the Russian Tatiana Lebedeva (Budapest, 2004) and all her style.

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The Caribbean in full (its coach, in Guadalajara, Spain, is the Cuban Iván Pedroso), the school of technique, speed and nature, replaces the Soviet in Lebedeva, strength, discipline and training faced as forced labor.

Before starting the rally, Ivan Pedroso, strangely nervous, he, the king of calm and relax, mate, and sweat his hands, admits: "Yulimar is very good, very good." Is it for 15.40, world record? "It's very good, it's very good," he repeats. The coach of the four-time world champion (twice in the open air, twice on the indoor track) has asked the organizers of the meeting, the final of the indoor world circuit , to advance the women's triple in the early hours, scheduled in principle to close the tournament: "I want him to jump as soon as possible," he explains, "so I can control all the stress." And she jumps already plugged in, longing for the record that she knows inside her to come out as soon as possible. The first attempt is a null so long that it grants the character of ineluctable to the record, that it will come no matter what. In the second jump, anxiety leaves him at 14.65; in the third, a new nerve null anticipates a room in which it flies up to 15.29 meters, the second best mark in history; the null of the fifth, so long, turns the sixth, 15.43 meters, into an explosion of energy and crazy joy. "I deserved it, I deserved it," says the Venezuelan. “I knew that tonight, on this track, the record came. Too bad they have suspended the China World Cup on the indoor track because they would have won another title. ”

The record also entitles you to an economic reward from the Spanish federation, the organizer of the meeting, whose mountain did not want to reveal its head, José Luis de Carlos. “The data protection law prevents me from revealing it,” says De Carlos, “but it does not reach the 30,000 euros that Mondo Duplantis receives for its pole vaults. We are a small rally. ”

It jumps in February 2020 Rojas (24 years and 123 days) and some of those who contemplate it from the stands, always with their mouths open, every year the same, all their jumps, remember four years before, February 2016, when still there was winter in Madrid, although moderate, and the prophecy they emitted seeing such a tall figure emerge from the bottom of the jump hall - a basketball player plant, over 1.90 and very long legs -, as uncoordinated and seemingly awkward , but very fast. He jumped 14.63 meters despite all that, and Ramón Cid, tripler in Moscow 80 and coach and wise, one of the amazed, said: for this athlete there are no limits, I have never seen anything like it, it is a force of nature, He was born for triple, just need to polish it. And everyone left dreaming. And she said: I was in Venezuela and had played basketball and was jumping high, but I wanted to jump triple and on Facebook I connected with Pedroso, and told him to train me, and he told me to come to Guadalajara. And here I am.

And with Pedroso, the best long jumper in Cuba, the jumper who deprived Yago Lamela of two world golds, Rojas gave himself up to a technical, physical and mental work such that he has not fulfilled the prophecy of those who they saw for the first time jump in Carabanchel, and they will never forget it.

The best outdoor brand of Rojas is 15.41m, nine centimeters from the absolute world record, 15.50 meters from the Ukrainian Inessa Kravets, who will turn 25 next August. Little do they think it reaches 26. The least Pedroso. Rojas talks about reaching 16 meters, the moon. Pedroso does not say no. "There are no limits," he says. "There are no limits".

José María Errandonea, from Irún, won in 1967 a time trial of the Tour to Poulidor, and a day of jaune jersey, for only six seconds, two seconds less than the time 52 years later his niece Teresa Errandonea, 25, It took 60 meters dotted with five fences, just 8s, which is the third best Spanish brand ever and made it third in the final after the Americans Christina Clemons (7.82s) and Nia Ali, world champion of the 100m hurdles in Doha. Errandonea, trained in San Sebastian by Ramón Cid, does not enter for one hundredth in one of the most select clubs in the world, the one with the seven seconds and peak, where only Nigerian athletes Glory Alozie (7,83s) appear as Spanish and Josephine Onyia (7.84s). The Errandonea brand, which would have allowed it to be a finalist in the World Cup that has been suspended, was the best Spanish news of the night of Gallur, next to the 1m 46.50s of Mariano García in the 800m (second), and its tremendous form of running the distance. The other great global value brand was 8.41m of the Cuban phenomenon Juan Miguel Echevarría in long jump.

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