Feofanova clears 4.60m to win 3rd Hopp Parádé in Hungary

The 3rd Hopp Parádé event took place in Hungary on Saturday.

After two previous editions in Győr (last September and this June), this time the competition was organized at the Southern part of the country, in the centre of Hódmezővásárhely.

The event and the venue were certified by the Hungarian Athletic Federation, thus the Athletes could achieve valid results. Hopp Parádé, as the name indicates, consists of jumping events.

While the first two editions included men’s and women’s High jump and men’s Pole vault (highlighted by Yaroslav Rybakov, Germain Mason, Dóra Győrffy, Romana Dubnová, Rens Blom, Denys Yurchenko among others), this time the two events held were the men’s Long jump and the women’s Pole vault.

Though in the start-list of the long jump there were four Athletes who have a PB over 8 metres, the extremely hot weather (37 degrees Celsius!) and the head-wind did not help the Athletes to achieve high results.

Australian Fabrice Lapierre won the competition with 7.74m, the runner-up was Estonian Champion Tönis Sahk with 7.49m. Triple jump World Championships silver medalist Jadel Gregório struggled with his run-up ang finally got third with 7.40m.

The star of the women’s Pole vault was Svetlana Feofanova from Russia. The former World Champion made it exciting for the crowd as she cleared 4.40m, her chosen opening height, only by the third attempt, but then went on vaulting over 4.60m for the first try and won the event with style.

Jillian Schwartz from the USA arrived straight from Brussels to take the second place with 4.30m and Germany’s Nastya Ryzih-Reiberger finished at the third spot with 4.20m.

It was an emotional moment of the afternoon when multiple Hungarian Champion and National record holder (4.55m) Krisztina Molnár announced her decision to quit competing and take on other duties as a mother. Besides her European Championships 7th place in München and several other very respectful performances, Krisztina took part at three Olympic Games. Twice as a pole vaulter, in Athens and in Beijing, plus she was a member of the Hungarian Gymnastic team in Barcelona.

The organizers plan to stage further Hopp Parádé events to help promoting the field events in Hungary.

All-Athletics.com