Hannah Knyazeva Minenko is known as one of the top athletes in the world in triple jump. In the last year and a half she suffered an ankle injury that sidelined her for a few months, when she returned to practice the Corona epidemic broke out which caused many competitions to be canceled – and only in the next few days will she actually return to international competition in Poland.
In her career Minenko reached some very impressive achievements, with medals in the major competitions, and at her peak she jumped to a distance of 14.78 meters. Now, she is fighting again for the criterion for the Olympic Games in Tokyo to be held in the summer, when she is required to meet the bar of 14.32 meters, but according to the recent competition held at Hadar Yosef Stadium in Tel Aviv she comes from a relatively low starting point with a result of only 13.83 meters.
It has been almost five years since the 2016 Rio Olympics, in which Minenko finished in fifth place after recording a jump to a distance of 14.68 meters, and since then she has not repeated that result again. Over the years, mainly due to injuries and professional matters of changing coaches, its results have only gone down. One of the stars of the industry has not been able to impress again despite the great talent.
The highest result she has reached since the Rio Olympics was at the World Championships in London, where she finished in fourth place with a jump to a distance of 14.42 meters, which is 26 centimeters less than the distance she reached in Brazil. A year later, at the European Championships in Berlin, she jumped a distance of 14.41 meters in the qualifiers and in the final reached 14.37 meters.
Undoubtedly, Hannah Minenko is now far from a peak and especially far from the world top to which she belonged, with the other jumps over time only getting better. The threshold for entering the triple jump final in the last world championships went up, when in 2015 the jumpers had to cross 13.84 meters to qualify for the world finals, in 2017 they already had to jump 14.07 meters and in 2019 only those who passed 14.12 entered the final competition.
According to the results of the current Olympic campaign, in order to reach the podium at the last world high jump championships it took at least 14.73 meters, at best. Minenko, who won the silver medal at the 2015 World Championships with 14.78, failed to reach that distance again, while at the last World Championships the winner of second place was the one who jumped up to 14.92 meters.
Also, the most prominent triple jumper in the world in recent years, Julimar Rojas, made the second-best result in history about a year ago when she jumped to 15.43 meters in the hall. It was actually the first time in this decade that anyone at all had entered the highest scores in history. To deal with it and the world top, Minenko has a big gap that it will have to close.
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Hannah Minenko returns to compete abroad for the first time since breaking her ankle about a year and a half ago. The Athletics Association believes that physically she is feeling well and that it is very important for her to participate in a competition on the scale of the European Championships, in order for her to get back to business. It is not by chance that the union fought for it to compete in Poland and they still believe in it. It is true that in terms of fitness at the moment she may not be at her peak, certainly in light of the result she did in the last test competition in the country, but Hannah Minenko is known as one who needs the competitions in order to get the best out of herself.
According to the union’s professional sources, Minenko is currently in the middle of its rebuilding process, after it stopped competing due to the injury and because of the corona plague that halted the world. It is therefore important that it meets its top competitors after two years, so that it can close the gap from the world top on the way to Tokyo. Even now, by the way, it is ranked 21st in the world rankings, which indicates its high capabilities. “In the triple jump, just as it is easy to go down, it is also easy to go back up. Her goal right now is to get back into competition, and compete well, ”said a professional at the Athletics Association.
Six years have passed since she was crowned world runner-up with her mighty jump to a distance of 14.78 meters. Since then she has not reached these areas again, but now she is back in competition, along with the coach who led her to this achievement, Alex Merman, to whom she returned with the aim of first and foremost achieving the criteria that would put her in the Tokyo Olympics. This is her goal, this is her ambition – and now her test begins back up.
The outstanding results of the world championships in the triple jump in meters:
2015: Second place 14.78, entry to the podium 14.77, promotion to the final 13.84.
2017: Second place 14.52, entry to the podium 14.77, promotion to the final 14.07.
2019: Second place 14.92, entry to the podium 14.73, promotion to the final 14.12.
Hannah Minenko’s results of the year from the climax:
2015: Jumped to 14.78 meters (Beijing, China).
2016: Jumped to 14.68 meters (Rio is Geniro, Brazil).
2017: Jumped to 14.42 meters (London, UK).
2018: Jumped to 14.41 meters (Berlin, Germany).
2019: Jumped to 14.20 meters (Limoges, France).
2020: Did not participate in competitions due to injury.
2021: Jumped to 13.83 meters (Tel Aviv, Israel).