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2008 Beijing Olympic Preview: Women’s Long Jump

Posted August 7th, 2008 at 2:45 PM by Jesse Squire

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

Women’s Long Jump
The Schedule: qualifying, Tuesday Aug 19; final, Friday Aug 22
The Americans: #2 Brittney Reese, #8 Funmi Jimoh, #9 Grace Upshaw
The Contenders: #1 Naide Gomes (POR), #3 Maurren Higa Maggi (BRA), #5 Tatyana Kotova (RUS), #7 Tatyana Lebedeva (RUS)
The Stats: Records, 2008 List, 2007 Worlds, 2004 Olympics
The Medal Picks: T&FN - Lebedeva, Gomes, Maggi; SI - Maggi, Kolchanova, Lebedeva
The Story: Lebedeva is a bit of a question mark. With her advancing age and double duty in long and triple jumps, she tends to compete far less often than her competitors in order to save her best for the most important meets. So her relatively modest results so far this year should be taken with a grain of salt, especially considering she’s the defending World and Olympic champion in this event.

I hesitate to bet against Gomes, however. Taking wind and altitude into account, her 2008 results are nearly as good as the best Lebedeva has been able to do in the last four years. Maggi is a definite step below Gomes, but did manage to beat her recently in Madrid. Reese, who gave up her remaining eligibility at Ole Miss to turn pro, is a very real medal threat as well. SI’s silver pick, Lyudmila Kolchanova, did not make the Russian Olympic team.

Note: Athletes’ rankings refer to TheFinalSprint.com’s World Points Standings, and medal picks come to us from Track & Field News and Sports Illustrated, respectively.