Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas on Friday set a new indoor women’s triple jump world record of 15.43m at a meeting in Madrid.
The 24-year-old world champion bettered the previous world record of 15.36m set by Russia’s Tatyana Lebedeva in Budapest in March 2004.
Rojas’s new mark also left her just seven centimetres short of the outdoor world record of 15.50m set by Ukraine’s Inessa Kravets at Gothenburg back in 1995.
“Tokyo is not far away,” Rojas told Spanish television channel TVE in reference to the 2020 Olympic Games. “We will continue to train and stay focused.”
“I am very proud. I don’t believe it, it seemed so easy to me, it is indescribable, a huge emotion.
“I was looking for the record since the first jump, but it fell on the last jump. When I go home I will cry, because that’s what all athletes want.”
