Posted: August 23, 2005

Athletics: Lebedeva - ‘And Then There Was One’ - TDK Golden League Jackpot, Brussels

Monte Carlo - Nearly two years ago, Friday 5 September 2003, in front of a crowd of 47,000 spectators, Mozambique’s Maria Mutola sped to victory in Brussels recording an 800m win in 1:57.78. In 2003, the Memorial Van Damme meeting in the Belgian capital was the final event of the six meeting Golden League series, and by completing her sixth win, Mutola became the first solo winner of the greatest prize in track and field history, the Golden League Jackpot of One Million Dollars.

This year the Memorial Van Damme, which takes place this Friday 26 August, is the penultimate stage of the TDK Golden League 2005, with Berlin’s ISTAF meeting on 4 September the final fixture, but otherwise the Jackpot solo scenario is the same.

Setting foot on the Triple Jump runway this Friday in Brussels’ Stade Roi Baudouin will be 2001/2003 World Triple Jump champion and 2004 Olympic Long Jump gold medallist Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia, the sole surviving Jackpot contender from the 12 who won their respective TDK Golden League events at the opening meeting in Paris on 1 July.

The 29-year-old Russian has had, with the exception of the untimely intervention of a niggling Achilles injury, an unblemished year of competition, with five victories in the Triple Jump - 15.11 (-0.2 m/s wind) Paris 1 Jul; 15.05 (0.9) Lausanne 5 Jul; 15.03 (0.6) Rome 8 Jul; 14.89 (0.1) Oslo 29 Jul; 14.94 (-0.9) Zürich 19 Aug.

More...from the IAAF.