Tokyo Day 4 AM Recap: Jasmine Camacho-Quinn Wins 100 Hurdles, Miltos Tentoglou Wins Long Jump on Final Attempt, & Christine Mboma Runs 22.11 World U20 Record in 200 Prelims

By LetsRun.com
August 2, 2021

TOKYO — There were two finals at the Olympic Stadium on Monday morning as the final week of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics got underway with action in the women’s 100 hurdles, men’s long jump, and prelims of the women’s 200. There were also prelims in the women’s 1500 featuring heroics from Sifan Hassan, who won her heat despite falling at the bell. That gets its own recap here. For everything else that happened this morning in Tokyo, read on. *Results

Women’s 100 Hurdle final: Camaco-Quinn caps near-perfect season with Olympic title

The spectacular season of Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn continued this morning as she earned a well-deserved gold medal in 12.37. World record holder Kendra Harrison of the US, who missed out on the 2016 Games, earned her first Olympic medal in second (12.52) to make it a 1-2 sweep for University of Kentucky alums. Jamaica’s Megan Tapper, who came into the Olympics with just the 9th best pb and 11th best sb, took the bronze in 12.55 as 2017 NCAA champ Tobi Amusan of Nigeria was 4th in 12.60.

Jamaica’s Britany Anderson, the youngest entrant in today’s final at 20 who ran a .10 pb of 12.40 to move to #2 on the 2021 world list and win heat #2 in the semifinals last night, hit hurdles 7 and 8 and ended up last in 13.24. 

Camacho-Quinn, the 2016 and 2018 NCAA winner for Kentucky, hasn’t lost a 100 hurdle race all year other than one DQ in Florida in May. She is a perfect 15 for 15 in the 100 hurdles this year. Barring a big mistake, it seemed like the gold medal was hers for the taking. The biggest question was how fast would she run.

Less than 16 hours before this morning’s 11:50 am final, Camacho-Quinn had run a pb of 12.26 (previous pb of 12.32) to win semifinal #3 and break Sally Pearson‘s 12.35 Olympic record from 2012 and move to a #4 on the all-time world list. Might Harrison’s 12.20 WR be in jeopardy?

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Camacho-Quinn said after the race she was gunning for the WR but a less than perfect race tactically made it impossible.

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“At this point, I was really running for the world record. I hit the hurdle, but everything happens for a reason. I came through with the gold. My first gold medal,” said Camacho-Quinn, who also noticeably stuttered to make sure she safely got over the last hurdle. “I almost fell when I crossed the line, didn’t I?”

Harrison surprisingly failed to make the Olympics in 2016 but set the WR later that summer. Then she failed to medal at Worlds in 2017 (she took silver in ‘19) and was very happy to earn her first Olympic medal.

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“I missed out in 2016 so to come here and get a medal for my country, I couldn’t be happier,” said Harrison.

Men’s long jump: Tentoglou comes up clutch to win a dramatic final

Entering the final round of the men’s long jump, Cuba was poised for a 1-2 sweep with world indoor champ Juan Miguel Echevarria leading at 8.41 meters and Maykel Masso second with a best of 8.21. Greece’s Miltos Tentoglou sat third, tied with US champ JuVaughn Harrison at 8.15 meters but with a superior second-best mark.

Spain’s Eusebio Caceres got things started by leaping 8.18 to bump Tentoglou out of bronze. But the Greek immediately responded, soaring out to 8.41 and into the lead as his second-best jump of 8.15 was superior to Echevarria’s 8.09.

That meant Echevarria had to jump 8.16 or better on his final attempt to wrest back the gold. He lined up, began down the runway…and pulled up injured, collapsing to the ground in frustration as he reached the board. Masso, who had also injured himself earlier in the competition, passed his final attempt as well, leaving Tentoglou as the champion with Greece’s first Olympic gold in men’s track & field since the controversial Konstantinos Kenteris won the 200 in 2000. Kenteris infamously withdrew from the 2004 Athen Olympics after falsely claiming to have been injured in a motorcycle accident to avoid a doping test.

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Women’s 200: Christine Mboma breaks World U20 record to beat Gabby Thomas, 100m bronze medalist Shericka Jackson eliminated

The women’s 200 meters got underway this morning with first-round action, and the biggest surprise was that Shericka Jackson of Jamaica — the 100-meter bronze medalist and third-fastest woman in the world this year — ran just 23.26 to finish fourth in her prelim and miss out on the semifinal by four thousandths of a second.

Favorites Gabby Thomas, Elaine Thompson Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shaunae Miller-Uibo all advanced, but the performance of the day belonged to Namibia’s Christine Mboma, who ran down world leader Thomas with an insane final 100 meters to win heat 4 in a world U20 record of 22.11 seconds.

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Mboma, an 18-year-old who came out of nowhere this year by running 48.54 in Bydgoszcz, was prevented from running the 400 in Tokyo because she is DSD — the same reason why Caster Semenya cannot run the 800. As a result, she dropped down to the 200 meters — an event not covered by the DSD restrictions — and sliced more than half a second off her 22.67 personal best today, running down the world leader Thomas thanks to a storming final 100 meters. Should Mboma continue running well, look for the DSD debate — which overshadowed the women’s 800 at the last two Olympics — to resurface.

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