(Reuters) – Hugues Fabrice Zango became the first athlete from Burkina Faso to set a world record when he posted the longest ever indoor triple jump with a leap of 18.07 metres at an event in Aubiere in France on Saturday.
Zango, who won bronze at the World Championships in 2019, added 15 centimetres to the previous record, set by his own coach, Frenchman Teddy Tamgho, in 2011.
Zango, 27, started with a foul but warmed up with a leap of 17.33 metres before steadily increasing his best to 17.61m and then 17.70m.
With his final effort he floated beyond 18m to break his own previous lifetime best by 30 centimetres.
“Bravo champion,” said Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Kabore.
“(Zango) holds the Burkinabe flag high, filling us with pride,” Kabore said in a Facebook post. “I ask him to keep going in preparation for a brilliant performance at the next Olympic Games.”
Britain’s Jonathan Edwards holds the outdoor triple jump world record with a leap of 18.29m in Gothenburg in 1995.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Thiam Ndiaga; Writing by Rohith Nair and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Toby Davis)
