Xango increases medal tally with first indoor triple jump world title | News | Glasgow 24

Hugues Fabrice Xango is no stranger to making history for his country and performing in international competitions. World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 On Saturday (2nd), the three-dan jump star was able to add another honor to his list.

The 30-year-old became Burkina Faso's first medalist at the Tokyo Olympics. The bronze medal in Doha in 2019 was the country's first medal at the World Track and Field Championships, which was upgraded to silver in Oregon in 2022 and gold in Budapest last August.

Now he has also won his first world indoor medal. He surpassed a strong opening effort by Algeria's Yasser Mohamed Toliki to jump 17.53 meters for gold.

Toriki's first-round attempt of 17.35 meters ended up being the only valid attempt of the tournament, and he passed his last three attempts.

After scoring 16.69 meters on his first attempt, Xango scored 17.33 meters in the second round, just two centimeters off Toriki's leading mark.

Although the top ranking did not change until the 5th round, Xango's reaction after the jump showed how strong he was. He jumped up and started celebrating, but the number “17.53 meters'' appeared on the board, putting him in first place.

Toriki was waiting to see if anyone else could beat his record, but Portugal's Tiago Pereira jumped 17.08 meters in the final round, becoming the third athlete to surpass 17 meters in the competition. , the Olympic and world No. 5 athlete defended his silver medal.

In his final performance, Pereira won the bronze medal, the second best result of his career after the personal record of 17.11 meters he set outdoors in 2021, and his first world medal.

Fang Yaoqing was within the medal range with 16.93 meters in the second round, but was dropped by Pereira and finished in fourth place.

“Winning a championship is never easy,” Xango said. “When I came here I thought I might be able to do something, but it hasn't been the season I wanted. Tonight I tried many times and finally made it on my fifth jump. Achieving 17.53 meters is really crazy.

“I'm really happy for Burkina Faso and Africa because we'll have two Africans on the podium in the final.”

For Pereira, winning the medal further justified the change in 2017.

“I feel amazing. It's my first medal in a major, my personal best, and my hard work is finally starting to pay off,” he said.

“In 2017, when I decided to switch to triple jump after 12 years of high jump, people told me I was crazy. But here I am jumping 17 meters and finally winning the medal. It's great that we were able to get that.”

Jess Whittington of World Athletics