On Thursday in Beijing national champion Huang Haiqiang remained
completely focused to claim the men's high jump title and take host
country to the top of the World Junior Championships medal table
with two golds.
Xue Fei was the first Chinese athlete to earn gold at the
championships when she took the women's 5000 meters on Tuesday.
The 18-year-old Huang, who was crowned last October at the
Chinese National Games in Nanjing, cleared 2.32 meters while the
only other contender Niki Palli of Israel, having cleared 2.29m,
failed with all of his three jumps over this height.
However, the Chinese athlete did have an early scare when he
encountered problems at 2.26m but he went on to clear 2.29m an his
first attempt.
Ukraine's Bohdan Bondarenko finished third clearing a height of
2.26m but failed at 2.29m.
(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2006)