15.43m new Women's Triple Jump world record Indoor (part 1)

I want to congratulate Yulima Rojas for her new world record of 15.43m indoor, but I also want to give a lot of credit to her coach, Ivan Pedroso, for this result.

For those who have never worked in the professional world as a jumps coach, it is difficult to understand the immense work that it takes to coach an athlete to increase his or her jump, a centimetre at a time.

I have been following the work of Ivan Pedroso and also Osvaldo Duani. These two coaches have dominated, for more than a decade, the world of female triple jump.

Osvaldo Duani,is a former Cuban coach living in Colombia, and coach of Caterine Ibarguen. He was in charge of taking this athlete to the highest level in the world, with a result of 15.33m outdoor. She dominated this discipline for almost 7 years until Yulimar Rojas appeared. 

Ivan Pedroso, also a former Cuban coach, a long jump legend who also had under his tutelage, athletes like Tedi Thango, Nelson Evora and still has Ana Peleteiro and of course Yulima Rojas. He has done an intense technical work that has led him to obtain these great results.

If we carefully analyse the development of this discipline, we can clearly see that in the last 10 years, the advances of this discipline are made by those Cuban trainers.

I know very well the intense work that all jump coaches are doing in Europe and America. I also understand how difficult it is for many of them to have results when in order to survive, they have to depend on two jobs.

Forming a good triple jumper takes time and at the same time the coach has to be able to create a culture that guides the development of this discipline at international levels. That is a big problem especially in all of Europe, where everything depends on the economic support of the federations.

Federations spend their money on events that they believe are candidates for medals, for example in the World Cup or Olympics. This makes it very difficult for those independent jumpers to reach the next level. Although it is a decision of the federation how to spend their money, and because of the complexity of this specialty in athletics, it is very difficult to create a culture of jumpers when you do have not the right support.

Cuba has a unique training system, and although it is a small country, it has the High Jump world record (Javiar Sotomayor), but they have not yet managed to conquer the world record in long jump and triple jump. In my opinion, they have the qualities but they are working on it step by step.

At the moment there are several Cuban jumps coaches almost all over the world, and almost all of them have results. Apart from plyometrics, speed, maximum strength, etc, we also focus especially on the technique as the fundamental basis for this discipline.

If we compare, the technique of Ibarguen with the technique of Rojas, we can see a clear similarity with regard to technique, explosiveness, time and space etc.

 Above all you can see that the technical quality creates a perfect rhythm, which makes it possible for the athlete to maintain the speed between the jumps and at the same time create an almost perfect explosiveness during the landing and take-off of each jump.  By this I mean, the less time you are on the ground, the greater the distance will be reached.

By Dr. A Osorio

                             Maintaining the perfect technique is everything.

As a jump specialist, I've been watching in detail how Mondo Duplantis did not stop at 6.17m, he came right back and broke his own pole vault world record by clearing 6.18m!

You don't have to be a specialist to be able to see clearly, the magnificent quality of his technique.

First, if we look at his approach, we can see how during it, he keeps his knees at 90 degrees, and how he gradually increases his speed to reach the maximum to guarantee an explosive take off, and at the same time to obtain a great amplitude at the entry. The rest is pure, good quality gymnastics, of perfect abilities.

The speed was great, but there is something that impressed me a lot- the ability during the approach, to keep his hips always up, something that triple jumpers almost always have problems with.

For example, during the hop and the step, triple jumpers due to lack of technique, tend to drop the hip at these two jumps.

Committing this error results in the loss of momentum and the speed between jumps, resulting in the last jump being almost always very poor.

In these last three years, despite the fact that the 18m barrier has been passed several times, the technique of jumpers remains the same, and I personally have not seen any change.

I think we, as coaches, are forgetting about the important upright posture which a triple jumper has to keep during the jumps.

Another very fundamental thing- jumpers still do not know how, during the approach, to be able to push back on the track or the take-off board.

Maintaining the speed between jumps is the most important thing for achieving a great distance, but the complexity of this discipline makes everything difficult, so everything has to be in balance.

For example, I will discuss some of the things we have to take into account - remember each coach knows what to focus on with their athletes,

- Speed

- Time and space.

- Posture

- Co-ordination etc.

To be a great triple jumper you have to work on the technique day by day. Plyometrics is very important, but an athlete without technique, no matter how strong or fast he will only accumulate injuries instead of developing his results, and when for one reason or another he becomes professional, his career will be damaged due to the great lack of technique.