#BudaQuest | Smith 11th in first long jump final

In what was her first World Athletics Championships long jump final, Jamaica’s Ackelia Smith could not reproduce her best this season, ending 11th inside the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, Hungary earlier today.

Smith, as she did in qualifying, began her series with a foul before getting on the board with 6.49 metres. She would improve that with her third effort, to 6.51, but the foul trouble that has dogged her in Budapest reared its ugly head again.

In fact, Smith’s final jump, which was ruled a foul, was appealed by the athlete. That jump looked for all the world, a medal-winning effort, but a rejected appeal meant no dice for the woman, who with 7.08, done in May, held the world lead until today.

Instead, the medals went to Serbia’s Ivana Vuelta, 7.14 (the new world lead), the United States’ Tara Davis-Woodhall, 6.91, and Romania’s Alina Rotaru-Kottmann, 6.88.

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