World Student Games: Flying Fasinro fired up in jump to gold

THE WIND was up in Buffalo and Britain's Tosi Fasinro was up to the task as he won the gold with a jump of 16.91m in the triple jump, writes Tom Chesshyre from Buffalo, New York.

With a wind of 4.6 metres per second behind him, Fasinro set the winning mark on his first jump at the new but virtually empty 18,000-capacity stadium at the University of Buffalo.

Unexpectedly, Britain's Julian Colley took an excellent third place with a jump of 16.88. Oleg Sakirkin, of Kazakhstan, just pipped him for silver by one centimetre.

Fasinro's gold was remarkable in that this was his first major senior championship. Importantly, the distance of his winning jump was enough to qualify for the World Championships in Stuttgart this August.

Coming to the World Student Games had been a gamble for Fasinro, one that a number of Britain's other top athletes were unwilling to take. David Grindley (400m), Curtis Robb (800m) and Steve Smith (high jump), to name just a few, elected to compete at the AAAs this week in order to set World Championship qualifying times rather than risk the unknown in Buffalo.

Fasinro, who is taking a business studies course at Staffordshire University, has shown great form this season. In June he won the UK championships with a huge jump of 17.30m at Crystal Palace, with Jonathan Edwards, for a long time Britain's No 1, in the field.