By Olalekan Okusan
Tokyo Olympic-bound Ruth Usoro continued her impressive display at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, United States with a gold medal in the triple jump.
Despite three fouls in the first four rounds, the Texas Tech athlete later found her rhythm in the fifth round leaping 14.21m to beat Ghanaian Deborah Acquah to the title.
In her final jump, the Nigerian landed at an impressive 46 feet and 10 inches (14.27 meters) to edge out Texas A&M’s Acquah and Florida State’s Ruta Lamane for the gold medal. Usoro tied Acquah’s top mark, but the Nigerian won the tiebreaker for having the second-best jump.
With the performance, Usoro matched the meet record with a mark of 46 feet, 10 inches.
Like the Big 12 championships fortnight ago in Lubbock, Usoro went from second place to first on her sixth and final attempt.
Usoro was unaware of the tiebreaker method, as she did not know she was the winner until she was told with tears of joy flowing for a title at the end of a difficult weekend of competition on runways that gave her problems.
“I began to cry,” she said, “because it didn’t really matter to me who won it. I just wanted everyone to be at their best. I was just happy that I was able to find the board.”
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