Pressure too much for Ikeda to handle

OSAKA — Athletes know all too well about the P-word.

Kumiko Ikeda competes during the qualifying round of the long jump on Monday morning. Ikeda jumped 6.42 meters but failed to advance to the final. AP PHOTO

Pressure.

It can be a positive motivation tool, triggering excellent performances.

And it can be a dirty word, a description of a condition that causes athletes to buckle under the, well, pressure.

Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell didn't handle it well on Sunday night in the men's 100-meter final, tightening up in the final meters of the race after he saw Tyson Gay, the eventual winner, closing in on him.

Pressure, Aristotle might've decided, is omnipresent in athletic competition.

Kumiko Ikeda, one of Japan's top medal hopefuls, at the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships demonstrated that pressure, if it's not handled properly, often leads to failure.

Ikeda placed a disappointing 25th in women's long jump qualification on Monday morning at Nagai Stadium.

Twenty-nine females competed; Carolina Kluft, Sweden's three-time defending heptathlon world champion, was also listed on the entry sheet but she did not compete. Her post-gold medal interview session carried on late into the hot Kansai night on Sunday. She deserved the rest, and a break from pressure.

"I put pressure on myself by thinking to myself that I would jump seven meters," said Ikeda, who owns Japan's record of 6.86 meters. "I could jump without any pressure and with pleasure last year."

On Monday, seven participants soared farther than the 6.75-meter qualification standard. The next five-best jumpers also earned a berth in the final.

Ikeda, the 2006 Asian Games gold medalist, made her first appearance at worlds in 2001. She placed 11th in that Edmonton, Alberta meet, but did not qualify for worlds in 2003 or 05.

"I was too much occupied with the record and I kind of lost my direction this time," added Ikeda, referring to Russian Galina Chistyakova s 7.52-meter leap in 1988.

It showed.

Ikeda, starting third among the 13 Group B participants, had consistently mediocre jumps: 6.39 meters, 6.25 and 6.42.

Ikeda, 26, didn't have the total package — takeoff speed, acceleration down the runway and the jump — that was required to be medal contender in the next round.

"It has been a year in which I was tested to become stronger," the effervescent 26-year-old told reporters.

Now she looks ahead to the future.

"I would like this experience to carry on myself to the Olympics next year," Ikeda said.

Russia's Lyudmila Kolchanova, who has the year's No. 1 leap in the world (7.21 meters) on her resume, took the top spot in Group A with a mark of 6.96, which came on her second attempt. Kolchanova didn't attempt a third jump — the maximum number allowed in qualifying.

Portugal's Naide Gomes, who competed in Group B, finished first with a jump of 6.96, identical to Kolchanova's. It came on her first try.

"I feel very well in this moment and am very satisfied with my qualification, which is only five centimeters to my personal best," Gomes said. "Although I have to admit that this morning, I was not feeling as good as I could and should have felt. In the finals I will do my first three jumps with a lot of precaution."

Tianna Madison of the United States, the reigning world champion, just made the cut for the medal round.

She jumped 6.59 meters on her second attempt to pick up the 12th and final spot.

France's Eunice Barber, the 2003 world champion, placed a disappointing 16th. The Sierra Leone-born athlete's leap of 6.51 was well off her personal-best mark of 7.05, set in 2003.

"I didn't feel my leg," Barber said, breaking down her performance. "I have the speed but there's something missing at takeoff. I couldn't do enough specific training and even though the shape is there, it's not enough to be in the top in such competition.

"I'm someone who prefers to analyze and learn from (a) disappointing experience rather than get into frustration, as frustration leads nowhere. Now I'll have to care about my problem and see if I shall get surgery to clean my knee. Maybe I shouldn't have come to Osaka at all."