Lecky caps glorious week with shock silver medal

THE sweetest successes are often the ones you don’t see coming, those that creep up from the shadows and defy the apparent statistical certainty of numbers on a page.

In most people’s minds, including her own, Sommer Lecky (right) had little chance of winning a medal in the women’s high jump at the World U-20 Championships in Tampere, Finland yesterday.

Her lifetime best was an impressive 1.86m, which is very good, but not quite the truly great height she would need to get among the medals at an event with such global depth.

But after breezing through qualification on Friday with a first-time clearance at 1.84m, there was a calm, quiet confidence oozing from the 18-year-old from Castlederg, Co. Tyrone.

Pitched in against event favourites Karyna Taranda of Belarus and Maria Fernanda Murillo of Colombia, Lecky looked every inch the world-class jumper Ireland has been sorely lacking since the retirement of Deirdre Ryan several years ago.

Lecky cleared a lifetime best of 1.87m at the second attempt without so much as a piece of skin grazing the bar, but the pivotal height came next, at 1.90m.

She was the first of the seven remaining jumpers to go clear and when only Taranda and Murillo could join her, thereby ensuring a medal, the well of emotions rose up inside.

“I was trying to stay focused, stay relaxed and not overthink it,” she said. “I knew I could jump it (1.90m) but I just told my mind I could jump it.”

Of the three remaining, only Taranda went clear at the next height of 1.92m, which sent gold back to Belarus.

Lecky, however, beat Murillo on count-back to earlier heights to hand Ireland just their fourth medal in the 16 editions of the championships, 24 years after Antoine Burke won the first with silver in the men’s high jump in 1994.

“I just can’t believe it, it hasn’t sunk in,” said Lecky, who represents Finn Valley AC and is coached by Niall Wilkinson. “It was a great field so I didn’t look at the medals, I just focused on myself. I knew I could jump 1.90m.”

And now, the possibilities seem endless, with Lecky’s personal best now just 7cm shy of the height that won gold in the last Olympics. Yesterday afternoon she very nearly sailed over 1.92m, too, but that’s a height that can await in what is shaping up to be a very bright future.

“It was so close on the last attempt but it wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “I know I can jump higher but I’ll take 1.90m, for now.”