Barber takes early Heptathlon lead as Kluft defies injury

There can have been few more impressive-looking second-place finishes on the first morning of the 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki than that of defending Heptathlon champion, Carolina Kluft in the 100 metres hurdles, the first of her event's seven disciplines.

The 22-year-old Swede, who came to Finland nursing a knee injury and then sprained her ankle in training on Friday, was never going to keep pace over the barriers with Eunice Barber, the 1999 World champion.

But as Barber stormed down the straight with some powerful hurdling, Kluft, after a tentative start and being headed to the halfway point by Britain's Olympic bronze medallist, Kelly Sotherton, Sweden's Olympic gold medallist began a charge that seemed to close some of the gap to her French rival over the final two flights.

Barber duly clocked a season's best 12.94sec for 1133 points, with Kluft, defying any problem with her strapped ankle, crossing the line in 13.19 (1096pts) - only 0.01sec slower than she had clocked when she on the World title in Paris two years ago on her way to her best-ever overall points score.

Sotherton kept British hopes high with her 13.33 (1075), ahead of Karin Ruckstuhl's 13.48.

The other three heats were won by Virginia Miller (USA; 13.45/1056), Irina Naumenko (KAZ; 14.07; 968) and Marie Collonville (FRA; 13.73).

The second event in the heptathlon is the high jump, beginning at 11.20am local time.

Kluft fights back with lifetime best in Shot Put

It was a shot that out rang around the Worlds: as she waited for the official distance to be announced,Carolina Kluft, the defending World Heptathlon champion, must have bounced up and down on her sore ankle at least 40 times, and when the scoreboard formally announced her personal best 15.02 metres for her first effort in the Shot Put, the Swede leapt with joy, for now a real battle was joined.

Kluft, trailing after two events by 153 points, had just seen her rival, Frenchwoman Eunice Barber, manage a poor 10.63m. The overall points gap was all but closed between these two great multi-eventers.

But Barber, too, is a tremendous competitor, and she demonstrated this in the next two rounds.

As Kluft failed to register another throw, 30-year-old Barber improved her season's best first to 12.93, and then to 13.20m, to score 741pts and an overall total of 2993 - with Sweden's Kluft back in contention on 2961.

"I still feel it is possible to catch Eunice," the 22-year-old Olympic champion said."I just have to keep going."

It was all change behind the two leaders, Lithuania's Austra Skujyte's event-winning 16.61m throw dragging her into the bronze medal position, with a three-event total of 2919, ahead of Nataliya Dobrynska, whose 15.20m earned her 874pts for 2891 and fourth place.

Kelly Sotherton, the Olympic bronze medallist from Britain, slipped to fifth (2831) after a 13.38m best put.

The women will reach the halfway stage in the competition after they have raced 200 metres in tonight's session at the Olympic Stadium.

Illwind blows Barber some good

The first evening session of these 10th World Championships had brought a chill, changeable wind to the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. Bt this ill-wind at least blew some good to Eunice Barber, the overnight leader in the Heptathlon.

When Barber's main rival, Carolina Kluft, Sweden's defending champion, went in the first heat, she knew she had to have the run of her life if she was to make any headway on the Frenchwoman.

And the 22-year-old put in a determined effort to clock 23.70 for 1010 points. But the 2.5mps wind surely took the edge off the Swede's speed, as it surely made Britain's Kelly Sotherton labour in the final stages of her 23.94sec run.

Two heats later, and the wind had dropped before Barber put in a gutsy performance, working the bend very hard to open up a four-metre gap on her opponents, before tying up in the final 15 metres. Barber was clocked at 23.53sec, running into a 1.0mps headwind.

Enough to make a difference? Possibly, as Barber went back to the Athletes' Village with a two-point overnight advantage over Kluft, 3973 to 3971, with Sotherton back into third place, 39 points ahead of Lithuania's Austra Skujyte, whose 25.31sec run had saw her relinquish her podium position.

With the leading three medal contenders all accomplished long jumpers, the first event tomorrow morning is certain to prove critical.

Barber gets the jump on her rivals

Two points down on Eunice Barber overnight, Carolina Kluft came out fighting this morning with a 6.87-metre first-round Long Jump, a season's best, that roused the morning crowd here and defied any lingering doubts about her injured left ankle.

That leap represented a 73-point turnaround against the Frenchwoman's own first round-jump. But, true to form, in the second round Barber battled back, jumping 10cm further with a season's best of her own, 6.75m.

It meant that Kluft still took the lead, but by just 38 points - 5100 to 5062 - going into the final two events, the javelin and 800 metres, as the momentum again swung back to Barber, the 1999 World champion, whose javelin best is some five metres better than Sweden's defending champion.

Behind the two principals, the fight for bronze became ever tighter as Britain's Kelly Sotherton underperformed in her best event, failing to maximise her score with a jump of 6.41 (978pts).

The Olympic bronze medallist's five-event total of 4795 was 104 better than Karin Ruckstuhl, of the Netherlands, whose 6.52m jump scored 1014pts. Also in the hunt was Lithuania's Austra Skujyte, a noted javelin thrower, who lay fifth after the long jump (6.12/887pts) on 4665.

The Heptathlon's 800m later today will see the introduction of an innovation to assist multi-event spectators, with a new system of identification for the leaders.

The leading eight athletes will wear a number indicating their position prior to the last event: it could be that after the Javelin, Barber will be wearing the No1.

Kluft edges ahead in sight of the finish
 
One of the finest multi-event contests even witnessed, between Carolina Kluft and Eunice Barber, continued well into the penultimate event of the Heptathlon, the Javelin, as first one of the champions seemed to gain an advantage, only for the other to respond in typically competitive style.

Once again, Kluft, the reigning Olympic and World champion, put down the first marker, throwing a season's best 47.20m for 806pts.

Then Barber came back with a 48.24m effort in the third round, worth 826pts. It sets up an intriguing 800-metre race, with Kluft - acknowledged as the faster middle distance runner - having an 18-point six-event score, 5906 to 5888.

African champion Margaret Simpson's best ever Javelin throw in a Heptathlon, 56.36 metres, represented a massive advance up the standings for the Ghanaian, who moved into the bronze medal, boosted by her 984 Javelin points, to 5511.

As Kelly Sotherton's challenge continued to disintegrate, her 33.09m throw worth just 535pts, she slipped to fifth place on 5330.

It sets up an intriguing four-way race in the 800m for the bronze medal, involving Simpson, the Briton, Portugal's Naide Gomes (41.36/693/5315), and Lithuania's Austra Skujyte.

After the Javelin, Skuujyte (48.82/837/5502) moved to fourth place, overall just nine points behind Simpson, but 172pts ahead of Sotherton, who would need to run close to or better than her 2min 10sec best 800m time to overtake her rivals and claim a medal.

In the days leading up to the best Heptathlon duel in history, it was impossible to decide. Would Carolina Klüft overcome an injury to retain her title or would Eunice Barber turn back the clock to regain the gold medal she had won six years earlier? At 8.37pm in the Olympic Stadium, the answer was provided by a scintillating race.

For nearly two days at the 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, we had seen the best two multi-eventers in the world at their peak from the manner they were outshining each other.

But here, as they prepared for the 800m, the final event of seven, they were separated by only 18 points. Klüft was in lane five - with a better time by nine hundreths of a second - from Barber on her outside in six and all that mattered now was who would be ahead of the other.

They did not even have to finish first - which they did not as the race was won by Britain’s Kelly Sotherton - but what was happening behind her was the real story.

In fact, it was a sensational story.

Barber had only one option: she had to go for it. The television camera panned in on her when her name was announced to the crowd and she gave a cheeky wink. She had nothing to lose.

As the gun fired, Sotherton, the Briton who was third in last summer’s Olympics but finished fifth overall here, took the lead. But Barber moved quickly into second.

All the time she was looking at the giant screens to see where Klüft was. She was in fourth and then third and on the second lap was growing ever closer. With 200m to go, she passed Barber and the gold medal was decided.

Sotherton won in 2:07.96, from Klüft, second in 2:08.89, with Barber fourth in 2:11.94.

The Swede had won by 63 points, with 6887, from Barber with 6824, but from all her actions, her words summed up it. Within seconds she was interviewed trackside, and she just said: “I don’t even know what to say after that race...?
It was probably impossible to describe because no predictions beforehand would have produced a Heptathlon competition like this one.

Sport is all about true rivalry. The intensity of a boxing match is always the greater when the two opponents are the best there is and here, we had the ultimate unification match in athletics.

Klüft is the Olympic and European champion, the third best ever athlete behind the legendary American Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who used to pretend she was competing against a visionary opponent who was better than her - just to drive her on.

Klüft did not need that. Her rival Barber topped the world season’s list before the competition began and almost 30 hours after they first stepped on the track together, they could hardly be separated and overnight, Barber led by just two points.

But Barber is the defending Long Jump World Champion, yet today’s first event was decided in the first round and not the way we might have expected.

Barber jumped 6.65m but Klüft responded with a sucker-punch - 6.87m, a season’s best. Barber then cleared 6.75m and 6.69m but the Swedish star was in the lead for the first time, by 38 points with 5100.

In the Javelin, whatever Klüft did, Barber improved upon this time. Barber’s final throw of 48.24m saw her finish third in the group, a place ahead of Klüft who delivered a season’s best in the second round with 47.20m.

While neither of them could compete with Ghanaian Margaret Simpson, whose 56.36m Javelin Throw was a national record to take her into third place which she maintained to win bronze, the difference was now 18 points between the top two.

A five-hour wait was ahead before the clock reac hed 8.37pm and just over two minutes later Klüft was the champion again.

Samuel Peters for the IAAF