2009 World Championships in Athletics – Women's triple jump

The Women's Triple Jump at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics will be held at the Olympic Stadium on August 15 and August 17. Cuban Yargelis Savigne had registered nine of the ten farthest jumps pre-championships and was seen as a strong favourite. The twice world gold medallist Tatyana Lebedeva and world-leader Nadezhda Alekhina were also considered possible medallists. The reigning Olympic champion, Françoise Mbango, had failed to perform well in the buildup to the championships and did not start the competition.[1]

Events at the 2009 World Championships
Track events
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m	men	women
1500 m	men	women
5000 m	men	women
10,000 m	men	women
100 m hurdles		women
110 m hurdles	men
400 m hurdles	men	women
3000 m steeplechase	men	women
4 × 100 m relay	men	women
4 × 400 m relay	men	women
Road events
Marathon	men	women
20 km walk	men	women
50 km walk	men
Field events
High jump	men	women
Pole vault	men	women
Long jump	men	women
Triple jump	men	women
Shot put	men	women
Discus throw	men	women
Hammer throw	men	women
Javelin throw	men	women
Combined events
Heptathlon		women
Decathlon	men

In the qualifying rounds, Asian record holder Xie Limei had the biggest jump of the day with 14.62 m, improving on her previous season's best by more than 40 cm. Savigne, Lebedeva, and Mabel Gay were the only other athletes to reach the 14.45 m automatic qualifying mark in what was a largely modest qualifying round.[2]

The jumps in the final of the competition were not of the standard shown in previous years, and favourite Savigne was largely unchallenged. She took the gold with a best of 14.95 m to become only the second athlete to win consecutive world titles in the event (after Lebedeva's 2001 and 2003 double). Second-placed Gay (14.61) won her first ever World Championship medal and Pyatykh reached the podium with a mark of 14.58 m. Biljana Topic set a Serbian record of 14.52 m for fourth place, but no other athletes managed beyond 14.50 m.[3]