Athletics: Sixth World Youth Championships-High jump season’s best for Labiche |10 July 2009

Seychelles’ female high jump record holder Labiche cleared a season-best 1.74m at the third attempt in the group ‘A’ qualifiers of the sixth International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Youth Championships in Südtirol, Italy.

Labiche, who had a good start to the competition, clearing the bar at 1.60m, 1.65m and 1.70m first time, thought she could keep alive her dream of making the final after jumping 1.74m at the third attempt, but she failed in her efforts.

She could not go over the bar at 1.77m to finish 20th out of 33 competitors. The 16-year-old was one of seven athletes to clear the bar at 1.74m.

Labiche qualified for the championships when she beat the entry standard of 1.73m on July 30, 2008 – the day she got the Seychelles national record with a height of 1.79m to win the Jeux de la Commission de la Jeunesse et des Sports de l’Océan indien gold medal. Her best height also went down as girl (U16), youth (U18) and junior (U20) records.

Only Italian Alessia Trot met the qualifying standard of 1.80m, while the remaining 13 qualifiers finished with an equal best performance of 1.77m.
Meanwhile, Jannick Ernesta goes into action again today in the 200m heats for a place in tomorrow’s semifinals. The final is on the last day – Sunday July 12.

On day one – Wednesday – Ernesta was slow off the blocks and recorded the worst react time of 0.368 seconds to clock 11.53 seconds in the ninth of the 12 heats to be ranked 68th out of 93.

He had booked his ticket for the worlds with a performance of 11.12 seconds during the Athletics Cup competition on Saturday April 4, 2009 at the Stad Popiler.

G. G.