Tokyo (AFP)

She had promised it, she did.

Ambitious and determined, Yulimar Rojas kept his word by offering himself on Sunday the world record for the triple jump (15.67 m) around which she had been circling for several months, a reward for an extraordinary journey started in one of the districts disadvantaged people of Venezuela.

The athlete with endless legs had been hammering for months that the successful performance in 1995 by Inessa Kravets (15.50m) was within her reach.

She finally chose the most beautiful setting, in the final of the Olympics, to achieve her goals and enter definitively in the history of her discipline.

Assured of victory in the competition from her first attempt, however, she waited for her 6th and last attempt to permanently erase the Ukrainian from the shelves.

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At 25, the double world champion (2017, 2019) is at the top of her game and has no opponent to her measure.

In the women's triple jump, there is her and the others and it is only logical that she won gold at the Olympics, five years after the silver medal won in Rio, thus becoming the first woman of his country sacred at this level.

Rojas' domination of the triple jump is relentless.

The Venezuelan, who also dabbled in high jump with a South American title in 2014, has four of the six best performances of all time.

In 2020, just before the end of competitions due to the coronavirus pandemic, she had offered the world indoor record (15.43 m) before being elected athlete of the year following a vote organized by the International Federation.

- Exceptional physical abilities -

Coming from a disadvantaged background of Altavista, an area of ​​the "barrio" (popular district) of Pozuelos, on the outskirts of Puerto La Cruz, a coastal town in Venezuela 300 km east of Caracas, Rojas grew up in 'a family of six children (four girls, two boys).

It was his father-in-law, a former professional boxer, who gave him a taste for sport.

Volleyball, sprint, high jump: little Rojas hesitated for a long time before finally opting for the triple jump.

Difficult to do better for the slender Rojas (1.92 m), member of the athletics section of FC Barcelona, ​​who combines exceptional physical abilities with perfect technique.

"She has an atypical style, she does not look like anyone, she has her own style, analyzed for AFP the French Teddy Tamgho, world champion of the triple jump in 2013. For the moment, it is wasted effort for the competition. She is 2 legs above the competition. To beat her she has to make mistakes. She is the one who loses, not the other who beats her. "

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Alone in the world, Cuban's protégé Ivan Pedroso, Olympic gold medalist in the long jump (2000), even comes to dream of herself as the future "first woman at 16 m".

A goal far from inconceivable according to Teddy Tamgho.

"She has an exceptional elastic rebound, she does not lose speed, estimates the French, now a trainer. She is a girl capable of doing 5.70 m, 5.80 m, on the last jump. Even boys of very high level have difficulty doing it. Even if it is more complicated for her with her long compasses, if she manages to have good coordination in the air, she is 16.20 m, 16.30 m straight away . "

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