Cape Town’s Breyton Poole Wins in Nairobi

Breyton Poole produced the performance of his life on Saturday, with the diminutive South African athlete smashing his personal best by six centimetres to clinch the gold medal in the boys’ high jump final in the morning session, on day four of the IAAF World U18 Championships Nairobi 2017.

Entering the competition with a world U18 lead of 2.18m, Poole secured the title after clearing 2.16m.

Standing at just 1.72m, a full head shorter than his opponents, he kept the crowd entertained by attempting four more heights. He cleared 2.20m with his second attempt, 2.22m with his first jump and 2.24m with his third.

After raising the bar to 2.27m, in an attempt to equal the championship record set by China’s Huang Haiqiang in Marrakech in 2005, his competition eventually came to an end.

His winning height was just one centimetre short of the African U18 best set in 1999 by Jacques Freitag, the 1999 world U18, 2002 world U20 and 2003 world champion.

“I was patient from the beginning and this made me more confident as the event went on,” Poole said. “I feel great having set two best heights in the same competition.”

Chima Ihenetu of Germany earned the silver medal with the best attempt of 2.16m, adding eight centimetres to his career record, and Vladyslav Lavskyy of Ukraine took bronze on count back with a personal best of 2.11m.
sourced: IAAF Website

This is his interview immediately after.
Watch the video

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