South African Olympic silver medallist Mbulaeni Mulaudzi became the outright favourite to win the 800m at the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Finland when he recorded a hard-fought victory at the third IAAF Golden League Athletic meeting in the brand-new Bislett Stadium in Oslo on Friday night.
The South African won in a fast time of one minute and 44,15 seconds. In doing so, he defeated Olympic champion Yuriy Borsakovskiy of Russia — this time coming from behind — by three-hundredths of a second.
In contrast to most of his races, the tall Russian was well placed when coming into the final straight, but on this occasion Mulaudzi fought back and showed that Borzakovskiy can be caught from behind. Mulaudzi looked the stronger of the two and should carry his current form through to Helsinki.
In the high-jump, world champion Jacques Freitag failed at 2,29m but all the high jumpers struggled on the day and the South African had some reason to feel quite happy with his first outing after his quick visit to Pretoria for treatment to his ankle.
Sweden’s Stefan Holm won the contest at 2,29m on count back from Jaroslav Baba of the Czech Republic, while Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia shared third place with Freitag.
The 400m hurdles for women provided a tremendous boost for South African champion Surita Febbraio, who finished strongly, moving from about seventh to fourth place over the last 20m. Her time of 55,43 seconds was her fifth fastest of the year and would have given her a lot of confidence on the eve of the global championships.
Lashinda Demus, the American champion and one of the three remaining IAAF $1-million jackpot contenders, had to settle for a disappointing third place behind her 35-year-old compatriot Sandra Glover, who won in 53,93 seconds. — Sapa