athletics
Shot putter Ogunleye wins World Cup silver
Yemisi Ogunleye won the silver medal in shot put at the World Indoor Championships. photo
© Bernat Armangue/AP/dpa
The German Athletics Association’s mini team got off to a brilliant start at the World Championships in Glasgow. Shot putter Ogunleye significantly improves her top performance.
Shot putter Yemisi Ogunleye won silver, Germany’s first medal in six years, at the World Indoor Athletics Championships.
The 25-year-old increased in Glasgow clearly set her personal best and missed a surprising gold medal by just three centimeters with 20.19 meters. The title went to Canadian Sarah Mitton. American outdoor world champion Chase Jackson won bronze with 19.67 meters.
Five months before the Olympic Games in Paris, Ogunleye from Mannheim competed with the best distance of 19.57 meters – and surpassed this in the first attempt. Mitton took the lead on the fourth attempt. It was enough for the title, also because the world’s best for the year, Jessica Schilder from the Netherlands, remained almost one meter behind her world best for the year of 20.31 meters.
Ogunleye won the first medal by a German shot putter since Christina Schwanitz’s silver ten years ago. Alina Kenzel from VfB Stuttgart took eleventh place with 17.80 meters. Overall, the German Athletics Association has only seven athletes at the start of the title fights, which last until Sunday.