Ogunleye settles for another indoor silver, Dosso runs 7.01 world lead to claim women’s 60m gold

Reigning Olympic Shot Put champion, Yemisi Ogunleye failed to reproduce the form that gave her Germany’s first Olympic title since Astrid Kumbernuss struck gold in Atlanta in 1996.

The Nigeria-born German’s 19.56m second round throw was just enough to fetch her another indoor title in the event after winning her first silver at the World indoor championships in Glasgow, Scotland last year.

The 26-year-old opened with 18.61m, the fifth best throw of the first round before improving to 19.56m to second behind Netherlands’ Jessica Schilder who repeated her fist round throw of 19.97m to remain as the leader of the event.

While Schilder wo finished fifth at the Paris 2024 Olympics improved to 20.24m, 20.37 and 20.69m in the subsequent rounds, Ogunleye committed a series of foul and failed to register any mark in her next four efforts.

Ogunleye will now shift focus to the World indoor championships in Nanjing, China later this month where she will be hoping to throw from silver to gold and become the first German since Christina Schwanitz in 2015, and third overall after Kumbernuss’ hat-trick of wins in 1995, 1997 an 1999, to win the title.

Meanwhile, Italy’s Zaynab Dosso ran a 7.01 world lead to win the women’s 60m title ahead of Mujinga Kambundji of Switzeralnd who ran a personal season’s best of 7.02 and Luxembourg’s Patrizia van der Weken who ran a 7.06 national record to finish second and third respectively.

In the women’s high jump, Olympic champion and world record holder, Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine cleared a rather pedestrian height of 1.99m to win the gold.