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The croatian got injured with less than two months left before the championship and ruled himself out of the medal contention bracket
World U20 long jump champion Roko Farkas has narrated the hard-to-imagine moment that led to him bagging gold in Lima, Peru.
The Croatian, 19, had planned to be all-in on the decathlon in Lima, his specialist event where he holds the Croatian U20 record with 7300. But in Budapest in mid-July, Farkas was doing a warm-up for the long jump when he landed awkwardly in the sand, having over-rotated in the air and he dislocated his shoulder in the process.
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He had about six weeks until the World U20 Championships and Farkas had the entry standards for the decathlon, 200m, 400m, 110m hurdles and long jump. But given the damage to his shoulder, the decathlon was out of the question.
He took two weeks of rest, then began easing back into light training. He and his coach, Patrik Koscak, decided his best bet was to focus on the long jump, given his personal best of 7.72m put him in contention with the chief contenders.
“The long jump was the tightest of them all and we thought we had the biggest chance,” he told World Athletics.
Soon enough, he was back jumping off full run-ups, and in Lima his singular focus paid off in spectacular style. In the qualification round, Farkas soared to a Croatian U20 and U23 long jump record of 8.15m, adding a whopping 43cm to his PB.
In the final, he leapt 8.17m, the longest jump in the history of the championships. It handed him victory by 24cm over Serbia’s Luka Boskovic. Farkas said he wasn't expecting to achieve that mark and is still to believe that he made it.
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“No, maybe my coach because he knows the best of me. We thought maybe 7.80m, 7.90m, which would be enough for silver, but the 8.15m in qualification really stunned me. I wasn’t expecting that even the slightest bit and 8.17m in the finals. I’m still so stunned I won the gold.”
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