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Two Australians will feature in the boy’s long jump final after Darcy Roper (QLD) and Shemaiah James (QLD) progressed from the qualifying round at the IAAF World Under 20 Championships.
The 2015 IAAF World Youth Championships silver medallist Roper finished third in Pool ‘B’ with a leap of 7.65m (w: +0.3). James just pipped Roper with a mark of 7.67m (w: -0.7) in Pool ‘A’ to guide the pair safely into the final round tomorrow night.
“Ticking the boxes is necessary, it was a good jump from both of us,” James said.
“We just had to stick to the basics and not worry about placings or anything like that, almost treat it like a training session and get through your standard kind of jump which was the 7.70m mark, which we both fell just short of.” Roper said.
Kirsty Williams (QLD, discus throw), Beth Croft (NSW, 3000m steeplechase), Georgia Winkcup (NSW, 3000m steeplechase) and Matthew Ramsden (WA, 1500m) also progressed to the final on day one.
At the end of day one of the boy’s decathlon Alec Diamond (NSW) sits in 19th position with 3609 points. Tomorrow he will chase points in the 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m events.
In the first final of the championships Clara Smith (QLD) was the best of the Australians in the girl’s 10,000m walk finishing 13th in 46:59.96 ahead of Tayla-Paige Billington (Vic) who sustained an ankle injury mid-way through the race to finish in 18th with a time of 48:32.33.
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