Breaking the curse

After recent failures of stars, Kaniskina strides to 20km walk gold


DAEGU ― Two-time defending world champion Olga Kaniskina of Russia walked across the finish line first in the 20-kilometer walk to add another gold at the 2011 World Championship in Daegu on Wednesday.

In full sunshine and sweltering humidity, the 26-year-old Olympic gold medalist had led almost the whole race and really took off before the 15 kilometer mark, finishing with a time of 1 hour, 29 minutes, 42 seconds.

The Russian walked with teammates Vera Sokolova, Anisya Kirdyapkina and China’s Liu Hong but increased her lead ahead of Liu and Kirdyapkina to break the “cover curse.”

“Thankfully no one told me about this before the race, they only told me after,” said Kaniskina with a laugh.

Favored athletes featured on the cover of the Daily Programmes at the games have seen losses this year, including Usain Bolt for a false start and 110-meter hurdler Dayron Robles for obstruction.

Featured on the opening day cover, the Aussie defending world champion Steven Hooker failed to pass the bar at 5.5 meters in the pole vault qualification on Saturday.

Featured on the fourth day was Russia’s world record holder and two-time world and Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbaeva, who was unable to clear 4.80 meters, 26 centimeters below her record, in the finals.

The Russian team did not make a clean sweep at the podium with Liu winning silver, followed by Kirdyapkina who finished third, some 13 seconds behind the Chinese athlete.

“Compared to Osaka and Berlin this race was very difficult. We were prepared for the hot and humid weather but not for the sun,” said Kaniskina.

Liu came in for bronze at the previous championships in Berlin, and was just shy of the Olympic podium on her home soil.

World-record holder Sokolova was unable to keep up with her compatriots or the pack and fell back before the three-quarter mark finishing in 11th place.

Portugal’s 36-year-old Susana Feitor set a new record by competing in her 11th consecutive World Championship, finished at a modest sixth place.

Korea’s own Jeon Yong-eun gave it her all to finish in 26th place with a season best of 1:35:52 before collapsing at the line.

By Robert Lee (robert@heraldcorp.com)