Posted: March 5, 2005

Athletics: Holm, Rybakov Among Qualifiers For European High Jump Title

By Bob Ramsak, Track Profile

(c) 2004 Track Profile all rights reserved TrackProfile.com

MADRID -- Yaroslav Rybakov, Jaroslav Baba and Stefan Holm, the top three jumpers in the world this year, led a group of eight into tomorrow's high jump final at the European Indoor Championships this morning in the Spanish capital.

Russian Rybakov, the world leader at 2.38 and Italy's Andrea Bettinelli sailed through the morning without a miss while reigning world indoor and Olympic champion Stefan Holm needed a second attempt at the cut-off 2.30.

"The season began very well, the way I wanted it to in Glasgow and Gothenburg, then I got a slight hamstring problem in Arnstadt in the beginning of February," said Holm, who finished runner-up to fellow-Swede Steffan Strand at these championships three years ago. "So for the last month it's been rehabilitation and starting all over again."

Despite the setback last month, Holm remains cautiously optimistic for his chances here in the premiere men's event of the weekend.

"In the last week I've jumped in two competitions, 2.30 in my hometown of Karlstadt and 2.32 at the Danish championships in Malmo last Sunday, so my form is very much up and down at the moment. My higher technique is all over the place. Hopefully everything will work out, but at the moment, I don't know where I'm standing really."

Baba, the Olympic bronze medallist from the Czech Republic, who cleared 2.37 earlier this winter, was struggling to find his form in the qualifying round, needing three attempts at each 2.23 and 2.25, before clearing 2.30 with his second effort.

Notable non-qualifiers included Ukraine's Andriy Sokolovskyy who has bettered 2.33 this winter, and Alessandro Talotti, who raised the Italian national record to 2.32 in Glasgow in January.

Underscoring the competitiveness of this event, Holm insisted that this title, one of the few missing from his collection, is an extremely important one.

"I may have won a lot of titles, both the world indoors and the Olympic Games, but I've never ever won the European Indoor championships. I was second in Vienna and fourth in Gent in 2000, so this is a gold medal that I really want. I want this title as well."

Underscoring the subpar competition in the horizontal jump this year, only two of the eight qualifiers went beyond eight meters in the men´s long jump. Greek indoor champion Louis Tsatoumas, the winner of the 2003 European Cup and European Under-23 titles, took care of things early with an first-round 8.09 automatic qualifier. Cuban-born Spaniard Joan Lino Martinez reached 8.01. The qualifying cut-off was 7.88; British medal favorite Chris Tomlinson, who couldn't go beyond his first round 7.85, did not advance.

The morning's only action on the track was the opening round of both the men's and women's 200.

Briton Chris Lambert led all qualifiers in the first round of the men's competition, clocking a personal best 20.77. Ireland's Paul Hession (20.80) and Guus Hoogmoed (20.81) of the Netherlands were the next fastest, also clocking personal bests. Discounting a pair of disqualifications, only five of the 20 entrants were eliminated in the first round.

With her 23.20win in heat five, defending silver medallist Karin Mayr-Krifka of Austria led all qualifiers on the women's side.Bulgaria's Ivet Lalova, the European sprint revelation of 2004, was the easy winner in heat three as she eased to the line in 23.21, while Yekaterina Kondratyeva nearly equaled Lalova's peformance with her 23.22 win in heat four. Poland's Anna Pacholak moved on as well after a 23.24 PB, finishing second to the Russian.

Heat two was notable for the false start disqualification of Russian Yuliya Guschina, the event's second fastest in Europe this year, and for a subsequent false start by Natalia Salahub of Belarus, leaving Romania's Angela Morosanu to run the heat alone. She clocked 23.79 to advance. With the disqualifications and a few no-shows, only five of the 15 entrants did not move on to tonight's semi-finals.

Look for a Day Two round up later tonight.

[NOTE: TPR is assisting the IAAF with it´s coverage from Madrid. Please visit IAAF.org for session updates and features. ]

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