11th IAAF World Athletics Championships-Leveau-Agricole, Woodcock credited with no marks |31 August 2007

Inside the Nagai Stadium in Osaka City, Leveau-Agricole, silver medallist at this year’s Ninth All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria with a distance of 56.49 metres, failed to register a single good throw in three attempts in group B dominated by Czech Barbora Špotáková with 63.77 metres.

Another Czech thrower, Nikola Brejchová was the top qualifier for the final with a season’s best throw of 64.29 metres.
The qualification standard for the final was 61.00 metres or at least the 12 best results in the qualifiers.

A total of 32 athletes took part in the female javelin qualifiers, meaning that Leveau-Agricole, whose Seychelles record stands at 57.86 metres, finished last.

This was Leveau-Agricole’s second participation at the ‘Worlds’. She made her debut at the eighth edition in Edmonton, Canada in 2001 when she registered a best throw of 49.40m to be ranked 21st out of 22 participants.

It is worth noting that with her silver medal win at the All-Africa Games, two-time former Sportslady of the Year Leveau-Agricole earned herself a first qualification for the Olympics in Beijing, China in 2008

Like Leveau-Agricole, Germany-based male high jumper Woodcock also failed to register any good jump. With the competition starting at 2.14 metres, Woodcock, who cleared the bar at 2.17 metres in Madagascar to win the IOIG gold medal – his first major title – failed to clear the bar three times.

Donald Thomas of Bahamas won the high jump gold medal after clearing the bar at 2.35 metres on a count-back.
Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia got the silver and Kyriakos Ioannou of Cyprus the bronze. Like Thomas, they also cleared 2.35 metres.

Olympic champion Stefan Holm of Sweden finished fourth with 2.33 metres, while Woodcock’s training partner, Kabelo Kgosiemang of Botswana, settled for ninth place out of the 15 finalists with a height of 2.26 metres.

G. G.