The Championships were dominated by the host nation China, and Kenya. The United States showed a near complete domination in the relay events. Estonia won four gold medals; their first medals ever at the World Junior Championships.
Remaldo Rose, bronze medalist in 2004, finished fourth. The initial qualification round saw national junior records established for Liberia, Ecuador, Azerbaijan, Cayman Islands, Serbia, Kiribati and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The original winner, Dmytro Ostrovsky of Ukraine, was disqualified for stepping in another lane. The initial qualification round saw national junior records established for Gibraltar and Ecuador.
Iguider was the reigning champion and championship record holder. Tsegai Tewelde of Eritrea, who finished fifth, established national junior records twice during the competition.
Tariku Bekele, the younger brother of World and Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele, won a bronze medal in 2004. Ebuya already had a silver medal from the 10 000 m.
The hurdle height had been reduced from 106.7 cm to 99.0 cm, thus allowing championship records in all three rounds of the competition. The world's fastest juniors in 2006, Dennis Martin and Darius Reed of the United States, failed to succeed.
Carter took the only individual gold medal for the United States. During the competition, national junior records were set for Togo and the Netherlands.
Komen beat the previous championship record by 2.34 seconds. Tareq Mubarak Taher of Bahrain originally finished second, but was disqualified for age cheating.[1]
National junior records for Canada, Cayman Islands, Chinese Taipei and Singapore in the initial heats. Germany and Nigeria fumbled in the final and did not finish; however, neither were ever in medal position.
Kenya, in fourth set a national junior record of 3:05.54, with 800 metres medalists Kivuna and Rudisha on the last two laps, thereby improving their own record from the heats. Belgium and Czech Republic too set new NJs in the heats.
Huang, helped by an enthusiastic home crowd, improved his personal best by 4 cm to overcome pre-event favorite Palli. Oleksandr Nartov of Ukraine, a medal prospect with a personal best of 2.26 m, exited at 2.10 in the qualification round.
Chiaraviglio, the reigning silver medalist, improved the championship record by 6 cm. The athletes who placed from 4th to 9th all failed to clear 5.36 m.
Zhang was the world junior leader in 2006 with 8.17 metres. Mohammad Arzandeh of Iran, who set a national record, briefly held a medal position. Medal contenders such as Konstantin Safronov and Chris Noffke failed to qualify for the final.
Discus throw gold medalist Hunt emerged as a complete surprise, having a personal best of 18.61 metres before the competition. He became the first athlete to win the gold both in shot and discus, after Rutger Smith won a gold and a bronze in 2000. Pre-event favorites such as Carlos Véliz, Sourabh Vij and Jan Petrus Hoffman all failed to break the 20-metre barrier in the final. National records were established for Kuwait and Uzbekistan.
Hunt had established a new world junior record of 66.35 metres at 9:00 AM on the opening day. In the final, he improved it to 66.68 and then 67.32. It was the first WJC gold medal for Estonia. With 63.00 m in the final round, Samimi skipped from fourth to second, following in the footsteps of Ehsan Haddadi who won a gold medal for Iran with 62.14 m in 2004. The qualification round saw a national junior record for Samoa.
In the qualification round Yury Shayunou of Belarus set a new championship record with 76.76 metres, beating 76.43 m from 2002. Aydamirov however, with a personal best of 82.60 metres, improved this record in the final but was seriously threatened by Németh who trailed 3 centimetres behind from the second round on. Shayunou eventually finished fourth in 76.95 metres, a national junior record, and Turkmenistan and China too got new national junior records.
Oosthuizen broke the championship record from 1996 of 79.78 metres in his second throw, and went unchallenged through the competition. New national junior records were also established for Tunisia, Serbia, Fiji (twice) and Paraguay.
Vasilyev set a championship record as the 99.0 cm hurdles were used for the very first time. García finished behind his personal best in the tougher men's decathlon event, where he has 7880 points.
WR world record | AR area record | CR championship record | GR games record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB personal best | SB season best | WL world leading (in a given season)
World junior leader Alexandria Anderson finished sixth. The initial qualification round saw national junior records established for Singapore, Chad and the Marshall Islands.
The winner ran barefoot. Bobocel successfully defended her silver medal from the 2004 edition. Additional national records were set by Latvian fourth-place finisher Poļina Jeļizarova as well as for Portugal, France and Algeria in the heats.
The American team equalled their winning result from 2004. Calvert won her second bronze medal for Jamaica, having competed on the relay team in 2004 as well. National junior records for Norway and Slovenia as well as a South American junior record by Brazil were established in the heats.
Both Pinnock and Sutherland won relay bronze medals in 2004. The Nigerian team had already set an African junior record in the heats with 3:33.00 minutes after a sprint duel with Jamaica. The final also saw an Asian junior record by the Chinese team in fourth place.
Reigning champion and favorite Lisa Ryzih exited early in the final after failing all three attempts at her opening height of 4.00 metres. The 2006 world junior leader, Valeriya Volik of Russia, finished fourth.
Before the competition Leibak held the world junior leading mark with 13.96 metres, which was improved by Sha Li with 13.97 m in the qualification round. Leibak was in the lead throughout the final, but with 14.05 metres from the fourth round she was threatened by Sha and Kulyk, who both jumped 14.01 m in the fifth round. In the sixth round, however, both challengers failed to improve while Leibak jumped 14.43 metres, only 9 centimetres behind the world junior record. Patrícia Mamona in fourth place established a Portuguese junior record with 13.37 metres; a new Spanish junior record was also set in the final.
With 60.22 metres from the first round, Samuels went unthreatened throughout the competition. Annelies Peetroons in fourth place set a new Belgian junior record.
Perie became the first World Youth champion from 2005 to win a gold medal in Beijing. The new championships record was an improvement of Marina Smolyachkova's 66.81 metres from 2004. Zalina Marghiev of Moldova was in bronze medal position until the final round.
Reigning champion Vivian Zimmer, who held the previous championship record with 58.50 metres, finished in seventh place. Like in the men's javelin competition, the winner was never challenged.
A close competition for the silver and bronze medals saw Marcussen prevail despite finishing behind Iryna Ilkevych of Ukraine in the 800 metres race. Ilkevych ended in fourth place with a national junior record of 5952 points. The winning score of 5868 from 2004 would only have been good enough for a fifth place in 2006.
WR world record | AR area record | CR championship record | GR games record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB personal best | SB season best | WL world leading (in a given season)
Medal table
An 800 metres win was the first major title for David Rudisha of Kenya.Artur Noga took the 110 metres hurdles gold for Poland.Kaliese Spencer of Jamaica won the 400 metres hurdles.
According to an unofficial count through an unofficial result list,[2] 1350 athletes from 176 countries participated in the event. This is in agreement with the official numbers as published.[3]
