Australia’s world championships campaign ends in a whimper
Australia’s world championships campaign has ended in a whimper despite Commonwealth Games silver medallist Brooke Stratton making the long jump final.
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Australia’s Brooke Stratton has finished a disappointing 10th in the women’s long jump final.
Stratton, who holds the Australian record of 7.05m, had been concerned about her form leading into Doha and those problems persisted in the final.
The Commonwealth Games silver medallist’s first jump of 6.46m was her best but it wasn’t enough to see her remain in the competition after the initial three jumps.
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Germany’s Malaika Mihambo blew the field away with a gold-medal winning jump of 7.30m. Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk took silver with 6.92m.
It wasn’t a happy ending to the championships for the Australian team with Michelle Jenneke and Brianna Beahan failing to progress through to the 100m hurdles final.
Jenneke was unable to back up her sub-13 second heat run, finishing seventh in the opening semi-final in 13.09sec.
Beahan struggled into eighth in the final semi-final, clocking 13.38sec.
Defending champion Sally Pearson, who retired in August because of ongoing injury issues, was in the stands doing commentary for the BBC.
In her absence America’s Nia Ali upset her teammate Kendra Harrison to take the gold in a personal best time of 12.34sec.
Harrison, who set the world record of 12.20sec in 2016, finished second in 12.46sec with Jamaica’s Danielle Williams third (12.47sec).
Ali, the silver medallist at the Rio Olympics, did a memorable victory lap with her two young children, Titus and 15-month-old Yuri whose father is Canadian sprint star Andre De Grasse.
The highlight of the final night of competition was brilliant front-running display from Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot in the men’s 1500m final.
Cheruiyot, the 2017 world championships silver medallist, was never headed at any stage and won easily, clocking 3min29.26sec to defeat Algeria’s Taoufik Makhloufi (3:31.38sec) and Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski (3:31.46sec).