South Africa’s Rushwahl Samaai won the men’s long jump at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm on Sunday as World Athletics tried out a new competition format.
The format, known as the ‘Final Three’, has the top-three jumpers after five rounds going head to head in a ‘mini final’. In the case of a tie, the best performance from the previous five rounds determines the winner.
Samaai, who had leaps of 8.07, 7.80, 7.79, 7.67 metres and a no jump in his five attempts, reached the ‘Final Three’ where he recorded a jump of 8.09m. That was also a season’s best for him.
Thobias Montler, of Sweden, had also reached the Final Three, along with Finand’s Kristian Pulli. In the one-off ‘jump off’, the South African’s 8.09 was three centimetres further than Montler, with Pulli having a no jump. Therefore, Samaai won the event, despite Montler having posted a distance of 8.13 (twice) in the regular five jumps. The new format has received mixed reviews.
It was the second meet of the year to feature World Athletics’ new bespoke atmosphere-creation system. The specially developed system generates custom spectator effects in real time, using an extensive database of sounds from various World Athletics Championships and Wanda Diamond League meetings.