A few months before Yulimar Rojas was born, two stars of the triple marked the sky.
At the V World Athletics Championships in Gothenburg in 1995, Jonathan Edwards recorded 18.29m and Inessa Kravets, 15.50m.
Almost 26 years these records have shone.
Yulimar now surpasses Inessa's with 15.67m in her sixth jump of the Tokyo final.
The respective partial distances were 5.40m, 4.30m and 5.80m for the Ukraine in Gothenburg and 5.86, 3.82m and 5.99m for the Venezuelan in Tokyo.
In both cases it is observed that the second distance, the step or
step,
is the shortest of the three. It is common in the triple. In it Yulimar registered almost half a meter less than Inessa Kravets. In the other distances Yulimar surpassed her. It is a topic, without an easy answer, the debate on the ideal contribution of the three distances in the final result. When the differences between
hop
(1st) and
jump
(3rd) they reach 2% of the distance, they speak of dominance, while if they do not arrive, they speak of balanced technique. It is common to find jumps with each of these techniques, even in the same athlete. The Yulimar jump in Tokyo was of balanced technique with 37%, 24% and 38% respectively of the total distance. The historical jump of Kravets is considered to have a slight predominance of the
jump
(3rd), with respective distances of 35%, 28% and 37%.
What seems incredible is the speed that the fast biomechanical results have given Yulimar on the
hop
beat
(1st). They have measured 40.2km / h compared to the 30-31km / h that complete biomechanical studies had recorded in other championships. It should be noted in this regard that athletes do not usually get as close to their maximum speed in triple strikes as they do in long jump strides. In addition, other athletes, such as Ana Peleteiro, have also had beat speeds measured well above those they used to present. For all this, it will be necessary to confirm in the definitive studies that this brutal speed has been measured correctly. And in that case explain with the complete information Yulimar's exceptional jump.
Xavier Aguado Jódar is a Biomechanic of Sports Professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha.
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