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Published: June 26th 2017
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Geo: 39.9165, 116.391
Friday Fletcher and I went up to the main shopping area of Wangfujing Street. We had watched the 20km Walk and the High Jump qualifying on TV and were excited that Brandon Starc had jumped a PB of 3-31 and qualified for the final. We caught the subway into the city and alighted at Wangfujing. We crossed through the subway and emerged into the pedestrian shopping area which is the "Rundle Mall" of Beijing. We walked to the 8 storey Book shop and went up to the four fourth floor. When we had been here before there were artefacts on sale. We wanted a picture for our dining room wall. We found some lovely silk hangings which we bought.
We then went back to the Orient Pearl shopping tower. Inexplicably the foorpath nest to this had been blocked off and we had to go through security checks to get in there. There seemed no reason for this corner to be targeted but that is China. Once inside we went doen to the lower floor where we had eaten a great meal the last time we were here. We had a great Thai lunch in the sane restaurant. Very nice.
We returned
to the hotel without incident and then later went to the track for the night session.We witnessed and amazing women's Long Jump final with 3 women jumping over 7 metres and the winner getting there on her final jump. The women's 200m saw Dafne Schippers from the Netherlands run a PB and the fourth fastest all time to win. The men's 110m hurdles saw a Russian first winning over more fancied runners and the women's 100m hurdles was won by Jamaica in an easy final without two of the USA women who had been DQ'ed afer either a false start or a fall. Sally Pearson would have blitzed it if she had been fit!!
Pn Saturday we had an easy morning watching Jarred Tallent win the silver medal in the 50k Race Walk on TV while chilling out in our room. We also saw the relay heats on TV. Our only team, the women's 4x400 didn't qualify. At lunch time we joined Peter Thompson and his Hokka One One athletes for a very pleasant lunch in the Italian restaurant at our hotel. Hokka is an up and coming sports shoe company which has grown from a $US1 million turnover four years
ago to a $US100 turnover this year, There are two or three US athletes using their shoes at the championships and we met Nicole Tully and Leo Montana who are in the finals of their events. I had the Ravioli foie Gras again which was superb preceded by pumpkin soup. Lovely.
Saturday night was another superlative session at the track. The women's High Jump was a great battle. Eleanor Patterson from Australia cleared 1-92 to place eighth The best for Australia since 1992, She is only 19 so has plenty of time to improve. All three place getters soared over 2-01m with Kuchina from Russia winning on a countback! The Decathlon final event, the 1500m proved fascinating with Ashton Easton from the USA needing to run 4-18 to break the World Record. He did it with seconds to spare, the first World Record of the championships!
The relay finals were dramatic with Jamaica winning both the men's and women's gold medals. However in the men's, the USA messed up the last change and were disqualified with China taking the silver medal. Much celebration in the stadium! These Championships have been outstanding for the competitiveness and the times!
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