Sixteen years, 329 days – the age of Bulgaria's Aleksandra Nacheva on Sunday. An athlete younger than any of her rivals in the women's triple jump final. An athlete better than any of her rivals in the women's triple jump final.
Nacheva arrived in Tampere off the back of a surprise defeat at the European U18 Championships last week, but if you think she'd let a minor detail like that get her down, you'd not be familiar with her greatness.
In the second round, Nacheva powered down the runway and sailed out to 14.18m, a world U20 lead, the kind of jump no one in the field had ever approached before, the kind of jump that allowed her to decide, after three rounds, that she was done for the day, to sit back and watch as her older rivals tried and failed to get within a foot of her mark. She won by 37cm in the end, and like all great things, the jump was one she couldn't quite explain.
"I didn't know where this result came from, it just came on its own," she said.
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