Alfeyeva again led the qualifying with 6.78, as the worst of the quali-
fiers reached 6.44. Skachko led the first round with an Olympic record
6.96, and Wujak and Kolpakova also beat the old Olympic record with
6.88 and 6.84. Skachko consolidated her first round effort with the first
7m jump in Olympic history – 7.01 – and only Włodarczyk (6.88) and
Kolpakova (6.87) were able to improve before the last round.
Włodarczyk improved again to 6.95 with her last jump to tighten her
grasp on the silver medal, but two jumps later that hold began to slide,
as the 20 year-old Kolpakova – a native of Frunze, the Kirghiz capital
– gave it everything and boomed out to 7.06 to become the second fur-
thest jumper ever. That wasn’t quite the end, as Wujak stretched out to
aGDR record of 7.04. No-one had ever jumped 7m and lost before, and
here Skachko moved to number four on the all-time list yet finished
only third. Former world record holder Siegl rounded out the competi-
tion with her best of the day, 6.87, as four of the top five reached their
best in the last round of this great competition.
Soviet Union
East Germany
Poland
Czechoslovakia
Great Britain
Bulgaria
Guyana
Hungary
Greece
Vietnam
Jamaica
Syria
Siera Leone