The queens of Tokyo seek new limits

Yulimar Rojas arrives from Tokyo to Guadalajara with Iván Pedroso and, having already broken the world record for triple jump (15.67m), the Olympic champion begins to work towards her next goal, to take a good bite out of the long jump, a test that She has hardly practiced but in which she is sure that she can also reach the top. Not so much, nor so fast as to break the world record (the 7.52m that the Russian Galina Cistjakova jumped in Leningrad in 1988), but this summer, before Tokyo, with hardly any practice, she jumped in La Nucía (Alicante) 7.27m. The brand does not appear on the lists due to excess downwind (2.7 m / s), but, together with a very long null, it allowed him to foresee that after a little specific training, a good 7.40m, at least , would be within your reach on your return to the competition, this Thursday (20.00,Let's go) in the Diamond League in Lausanne.

Athlete Elaine Thompson during the 100m race during the Wanda Diamond LeagueJONATHAN FERREY / AFP

However, a few days ago, Rojas and Pedroso changed their plans.

The jumper also did a couple of triple sessions, to improve her second, the step, and Pedroso saw her so well, "better than in Tokyo," say those present who said, that he decided at the last minute to erase her from the length and enroll her in the triple, in which she will seek a new world record, and a financial reward for achieving it that is not awarded at the Games.

And the Venezuelan, the queen of noon in Tokyo, will not be the only protagonist of the afternoon (the triple jump is at 8:45 p.m.).

More than two weeks have passed since the Games and on the shores of Lake Lausanne, so Olympic, only records are talked about, as if the conversation started in Tokyo had not been exhausted and on Thursday, at Athletissima, the first stop in Europe of the Diamond League this August, should be renewed with absolute vigor and necessity.

She talks about world record Elaine Thompson, the queen of the night in Tokyo, and the world, expectantly, holds its breath. The Jamaican, triple gold medalist in Tokyo (100m, 200m, and 4x100m), did not rest after the Games and a week ago, last Saturday, exhibited in the new tartan at Hayward Field in Eugene (Oregon), the quality of the new synthetic material, similar to Tokyo, the speed of the new shoes, already exhibited in Tokyo, and, above all, the quality and speed of his ankles and feet, as he won the 100m with a mark of 10.54s, seven hundredths less than the extraordinary mark that gold gave it in Japan, just five hundredths of the 10.49s that Florence Griffith left as a world record in 1988 in Indianapolis, a record forever unattainable by popular imagination for decades,and perfectly within the reach of the five-time Olympic champion (she also won the 100m and 200m in Rio 2016).

The magic slippers

Apart from talking about shoes that, with their padding, their carbon plate, their light foams, make the athlete run with a straighter back, with which the hamstrings, the sprint muscles, stretch better and suffer less, and They make the foot stay on the track for less time, made with synthetic materials that return the energy of the footprint like a spring, the technicians emphasize that Thompson, 29, has dramatically improved his output, although his second step, they say, it is still short, and it no longer seeks to stand up fast, but accelerates better because it takes longer to get fully upright. Despite that, he always reaches 50 meters behind his compatriot Shelly Ann Fraser, a cannonball at the exits thanks to his smaller stature. The difference, always, straight back, high hips, right angles her knees,the Thompson brand in the second part of his career, as he is able to continue accelerating up to 70 meters, where he reaches his maximum speed, 40 kilometers per hour, and takes longer to decelerate than Fraser, who at 60 has already reached his stop.

“Flo Jo [Florence Griffith Joyner] ran so smooth, it was silk, so fluid… I try to imitate her, but I have not yet caught up with her,” says Thompson in Lausanne, where she has arrived from California by private plane.

"The world record is not my big goal, anyway, but if the circumstances arise ...".

The test, at 21.07.

And if Karsten Warholm, the world record holder for 400m hurdles (45.94s) can beat the European record for 400m sprints (44.33s by Thomas Schönlebe) and even be the first European below 44s, he also speaks of a record ( of Spain) Marta Pérez, the whopping Soriana who with her 4m 0.12s of her ninth place in the Tokyo final was 61 hundredths of the national record of 1,500m (3m 59.51s) set by Natalia Rodríguez 16 years ago .

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