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| February 19, 2002 | Tuesday | Zilhaj 6, 1422 |
Graf fails to break record
BIRMINGHAM (England), Feb 18: Austrian Stephanie Graf failed in her bid to break the 14-year-old indoor world 800 metres record Sunday, but she did beat arch-rival Maria Mutola.
Graf, the Olympic and world silver medallist, was one of a number of athletes with their sights on the record books, but the Birmingham grand prix meeting, which has witnessed four world best marks in the past three years, failed to produce any fireworks this time.
Another to miss out was Ethiopia’s Berhane Adere, the fastest woman in the world over 1,500m indoors this season, although her performance in winning the 3,000m underlined the threat she will pose in middle distance running this year.
Several big names failed to live up to their pre-event billing, including former women’s pole vault world record holder Stacy Dragila, who was again overshadowed by Russia’s Svetlana Feofanova.
The American suffered a miserable afternoon, failing at 4.44 metres, as Feofanova cleared 4.64m and narrowly missed breaking her recent world record of 4.73m.
Despite not breaking Christine Wachtel’s world record, Graf was delighted to beat Mozambique’s Mutola, who had deprived her of the Olympic and world titles.
Graf, who was disqualified in Birmingham last year after clashing with Mutola, won in 1:57.61 with a powerful display of front running which bodes well for the European Indoor championships in Vienna in March.
Adere broke away from Portugal’s Carla Sacramento four laps from home in the women’s 3,000m to clock 8:32.88 — beating Gabriela Szabo’s British all-comers record.
There was controversy in the men’s 60m final when Britain’s Jason Gardener appeared to be wrongly false-started. The race was won by the season’s form sprinter, South Africa’s Morne Nagel, in 6.50 seconds, ahead of Britain Mark Lewis-Francis and an angry Gardener.
The women’s 60m was billed as a duel between Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, who beat favourite Marion Jones to take gold in the 100m at the world championhips in Edmonton last year, four times Olympic medallist Gail Devers and the fastest woman in the world this year, Chandra Sturrup of the Bahamas.
But they were all upstaged by Nigeria’s Chioma Ajunwa, the 1996 Olympic long jump champion, who cruised to victory in 7.06 seconds. Sevatheda Fynes of the Bahamas was second in 7.09 with Pintusevich-Block third.
America’s Kevin Dilworth dominated the long jump competition, which included world and Olympic champion Ivan Pedroso of Cuba.
Pedroso failed to make an impact as Dilworth won with 8.18 metres. Russia’s Aleksey Lukashevich was second with 7.99m, followed by Savante Stringfellow who managed 7.98.—Reuters
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