Men's triple jump final excites, Canadian wins women's 100m hurdles
It came down to the final jumps Friday at the Diamond League finals in Brussels as the three men’s triple jump leaders all saved their best for last. Teddy Tamgho of France had a slim one point lead in the Diamond League standings entering the final event. Close behind him were Alexis Copello of Cuba and Christian Olsson of Sweden.
All three men made their best jumps in their final attempts. Tamgho, bronze medal winner in this year’s European Championships in Barcelona, had already set the mark to beat with a jump of 17.33 metres in his third attempt, he then increased his lead to 17.52 metres in his final jump. It would turn out to be an important increase as Copello jumped 17.47 metres in his final jump. Olsson’s best jump was only 17.17 metres before his final jump of 17.35 metres.
The final standings looked exactly the same after the final event as they did before it despite the exciting finish with Tamgho winning the men’s triple jump Diamond Trophy.
Canadian Priscilla Schliep-Lopes, bronze medal winner in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, beat silver medallist, Sally Pearson of Australia, in the final race to win the Diamond Trophy with a time of 12.54. Lopes-Schliep had a strong finish to the season winning three of the last four races.
Lolo Jones of The United States, who finished the race with a time of 12.78 after a slow start, managed only two third place finishes in her last two races before the final after winning the season’s first three races in Doha, Oslo, and New York. She finished a dismal fifth in the final but stayed in second in the overall standings.
Pearson clinched third place overall by beating another Canadian, Perdita Felicien, in the final race. Felicien finished only 0.04 seconds behind Pearson and ended the season in fourth place overall.
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