The men’s triple jump qualifying round stayed true to form. Evora, Idowu, Sands (the Olympic medalist trio), along with Girat, Spasovkhodskiy and Gregorio are all qualified and ready to compete for the gold. Evora seems to be picking up where he left off last August. It will be exciting to see if Idowu will ever learn how to extend in the pit or will he continue to drop his legs without any extension.
Evora is in the best position in the finals because he will be the first jumper. I think this is the best position because if you get a good jump off before anyone else it has a tendancy to make other jumpers “press” to the board and foul or not get a fluid jump. The pressure of trying to catch up is like running in a distance race, jumpers tend to try to jump far quickly rather than relaxing and letting the jump come to them. Personally, I loved to see big jumps in the beginning out of my competitors because it would get me fired up. I really look forward to see how the jumpers react to Evora’s first jump.
If Gregorio can return to his form two years ago he could pull out an upset in this competition. He needs a major championship to make his career a successful one. He has jumped 17m90 but that distance was only good enough for a silver medal. The problem with Gregorio is he is getting older and his jumping seems to be a little rusty.
I think the biggest factor in the event is going to be the swirling winds. If one of the leaders get a nice tailwind they could jump far enough to close out the rest of the jumpers. I hope it will be a good competition.
Mr. Triple Jump 
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