{"id":1003,"date":"2016-05-14T10:41:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T10:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/shanghai-and-perkovic-continue-their-love-affair\/"},"modified":"2016-05-14T10:41:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T10:41:00","slug":"shanghai-and-perkovic-continue-their-love-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/shanghai-and-perkovic-continue-their-love-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanghai And Perkovic Continue Their Love Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"
The roar that went up when Perkovic launched her winning throw in the discus was as loud as anything heard in Shanghai stadium on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Okay, the discus was in the early part of the program, a good crowd was already in and looking for anything remotely cheer-worthy. But you could really feel the love.<\/p><\/div>\n

It is not hard to see why, at least on Perkovic\u2019s part.<\/div>\n
She has set three Croatian national record on previous visits to the IAAF Diamond League meeting in 2012 and 2014. She did not get one this time \u2013 that\u2019s the problem of setting high standards \u2013  but her 70.88m winning effort was a world lead, an IAAF Diamond League record and, naturally, a meeting record, too.<\/div>\n
On her most recent visit to China, Perkovic was defeated in at IAAF World championships Beijing 2015 by Denia Caballero but she also avenged that defeat on Saturday night as well.<\/div>\n
Best of all, though, she feels she is at last in full health after some persistent injury problems.<\/div>\n
\u201cThis victory means a lot to me,\u201d reflected Perkovic. \u201cTo open the season with a meeting record and world lead is a great start.\u201d<\/div>\n
Perkovic continued: \u201cI have never been in better shape and I am actually a little angry with myself that I didn\u2019t throw a little further. Maybe I will do that at Prefontaine IDL. For the first time in many years I am healthy without back, knee and ankle problems. I am 100 per cent healthy. I know I have to be in great shape to be in the fight to win gold and deliver my dream of gold at the Rio Olympics.\u201d<\/div>\n
Healthy Perkovic might have been, but her first throw \u2013 a sector foul well wide down the left-hand side – was enough to make anyone sick. Dani Samuels, the ultimate runner-up, led after the first round with an effort of exactly 64.00m.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
PERKOVIC GETS THE CROWD ROARING<\/b><\/div>\n
Caballero, with 66.14m, and then Perkovic really got motoring in the second round.<\/p>\n

The world champion took the lead with a 66.14m which remained her best of the competition. Perkovic, throwing after her in the order, responded with a 65.37m effort.<\/p><\/div>\n

Round three saw Perkovic move into the lead with a 67.73m throw which produced the first crowd roar of the meeting. Her next effort, the 70.88m winner, eclipsed that for both distance and decibels.<\/div>\n
Samuels produced a 67.77m final round throw \u2013 close to her personal best of 67.99m and her third-best ever \u2013 to grab second place, while Su Xinyue delighted the home fans with her best of 64.45m, also in the last round.<\/div>\n
The men\u2019s shot put shared the early-evening limelight with the discus, and was a much closer competition. At the halfway point, 2015 world champion Joe Kovacs led 2016 world indoor champion Tom Walsh by just three centimetres, 20.82m to 20.79m, with two-time Olympic champion Tomasz Majewski a further three centimetres behind.<\/div>\n
Kovacs could not improve in distance, and remained in third place but both Walsh and and Kurt Roberts saved their best for their sixth and final efforts. Robert, down in fourth, threw 21.40m \u2013 just a few centimetres shy of Kovacs\u2019 21.47m outdoor world lead \u2013 and then Walsh responded with 21.20m.<\/div>\n
The next field event on the programme, the men\u2019s pole vault, started early but was the very last event to  finish.<\/div>\n
It also produced the evening\u2019s biggest shock with Sam Kendricks making clutch third-attempt clearances at both 5.83m and 5.88m to hand a defeat to world record holder Renaud Lavillenie.<\/div>\n
Lavillenie had led with a second-time clearance at 5.83m, but failed twice at 5.88m and then elected to take his final attempt at 5.93m. He missed that, too, so Kendricks took the win and Lavillenie\u2019s quest for a seventh straight Diamond Race victory got off to a losing start.<\/div>\n
SEAMLESS SPANOVIC<\/b><\/div>\n
After all the talk of transition from indoor to outdoor seasons here, Ivana Spanovic made a seamless crossover from her world indoor championships silver medal in March to an IAAF Diamond League win.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Spanovic opened with a 6.95m effort which was good enough to stand up throughout the competition. Just in case, she had two more jumps further than the best anyone else could produce.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Christabel Nettey edged Tianna Bartoletta out of second place on countback, both having a best of 6.75m, but Nettey backing that up with a 6.74m to Bartoletta\u2019s 6.69m.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Sosthene Moguenara was also in the hunt for a top-three finish, but her 6.74m saw her finish fourth.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The men\u2019s field events continued with what has become almost a Shanghai tradition, relatively moderate distances but extremely close competition.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
China\u2019s Gao Xinglong and South Africa\u2019s Rushwal Samaai both had a best distance of 8.14m, but Gao\u2019s second-best 8.09m just trumped Samaai\u2019s 8.07m, with Fabrice Lapierre third with 8:09m.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A 85.71m effort saw Thomas Rohler off to a winning start in the men\u2019s javelin Diamond Race.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Len Johnson for the IAAF and the IAAF Diamond League<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandra Perkovic loves Shanghai. And Shanghai loves Perkovic right back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}