Original title: World Athletics Championships: Wang Jianan won gold in long jump and made history, Gong Lijiao won silver in shot put
The 2022 World Championships in Athletics will continue on the 16th local time in Eugene, Oregon, USA. China’s Wang Jianan won the men’s long jump championship with a score of 8.36 meters. This is the first gold medal won by the Chinese track and field team in this World Championships, and it is also the first time that a Chinese player has won the Men’s Long Jump World Championship. Olympic champion Gong Lijiao took silver in the women’s shot put.
Wang Jianan’s gold medal is a pleasant surprise. In the qualifying round, he advanced to the final with a score of 7.98 meters. Wang Jianan’s performance in the first five jumps in the final was average, and he failed to make it into the top three. However, in the last jump, he performed bravely following adjustment and jumped out with a good score of 8.36 meters. In one fell swoop, he jumped to the first place, and no other player ever surpassed this result. The Tokyo Olympic champion and Greek star Tentoglu only jumped 8.20 meters. In the end, Wang Jianan won the men’s long jump gold medal.
In the previous three World Championships, Wang Jianan’s best result was the bronze medal won at the 2015 Beijing Track and Field World Championships, and he also won the Asian Games gold medal. His personal best score of 8.47 meters is the national record for the Chinese men’s long jump. Wang Jianan cried with joy when he won the gold at the World Championships this time, which is the best result in his career.
In the women’s shot put final, Tokyo Olympic champion Gong Lijiao threw a personal season best of 20 meters 39, and finally won the runner-up, missing the project’s three consecutive World Championships. American Yili won the championship with 20.49 meters.
This is Gong Lijiao’s eighth time to participate in the World Championships. She has won two world championships in 2017 and 2019, and then won the championship at last year’s Tokyo Olympics. However, due to factors such as the epidemic, Gong Lijiao does not have much competition experience this season. After a period of preparation, before the World Championships, she said that she was relatively satisfied with her state. “Although it cannot be compared with the Tokyo Olympics, it has basically recovered to 90%.”
In the qualifying round, Gong Lijiao threw 19 meters 51 in the second to easily advance. In the final, she once once more showed her experience advantage in the competition. She pitched 19.58 meters in the first shot, ranking second only to Yili’s 20.49 meters. In the second shot, she raised her score to 19.84 meters and third. Gong Lijiao continued to adjust and threw 20.23 meters, and the fifth threw 20.39 meters. Unfortunately, the last shot failed to go further, and finally won the runner-up with 20.39 meters. Song Jiayuan, another Chinese player, finished sixth with 19.57 meters.
This season, the competition in the world women’s shot put is fierce, and the American player Yili is in great shape, throwing the world’s best score of 20 meters 51 this year. However, this is Gong Lijiao’s seventh medal won in eight World Championships, and it still shows her strong competitiveness in the women’s shot put field.
Chinese players also participated in a number of competitions that day. In the men’s 110-meter hurdles preliminaries, Chinese star Xie Wenjun, who played with an injury, ranked 25th with a time of 13.58 seconds and missed the semifinals. In the 2019 Doha World Championships, he won the fifth place in this project, creating his best result in the world championships. He reached the semifinals at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
In the women’s high jump qualifying competition, the “post-00” teenager Lu Jiawen, who participated in the World Championships for the first time, failed to challenge the height of 1.81 meters three times, and finally ranked 14th in the group with a score of 1.75 meters and missed the final.
In the women’s 3000-meter obstacle course, Chinese player Xu Shuangshuang’s preliminaries result was 9 minutes 39 seconds 17, which was her personal best result of the season, and finally ranked 32nd and missed the cut. (Reporter Xing Chong)
