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Caterine Ibarguen: Youngest Triple Jump Gold Medalist At Rio    

At the age of 20, Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen is the youngest to win the triple jump gold medal in Olympic history.

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Triple jumper Caterine Ibarguen won Colombia’s first Olympic gold medal in athletics on Sunday, building on several years of dominance by sweeping to victory with a season’s best leap of 15.17 metres.

It’s the biggest dream to achieve this. I’m very happy and proud.
Caterine Ibarguen, Triple Jumper, Colombia

The two-time world champion Ibarguen was hot-favourite going into the Rio Games after winning 36 of her last 37 competitions excluding qualifying events.

The 32-year-old soared past 15m twice and appeared in total control after producing her best jump in the fourth round, though she failed in her plan to break Ukraine’s Inessa Kravets’s world record of 15.50m set in 1995.

At the age of 20, Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen is the youngest to win the triple jump gold medal in Olympic history.
Colombia’s gold medal winner Caterine Ibarguen competes during the women’s triple jump final during the athletics competitions of the 2016 Summer Olympics at the Olympic stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo: AP)

Ibarguen’s young challenger Yulimar Rojas took silver with a 14.98m jump and became the first woman from the South American country to win a medal in athletics.

The 20-year-old also became the youngest female winner of a triple jump Olympic medal, capping her meteoric rise in an event she only started two years ago.

Kazakhstan’s London Olympics champion Olga Rypakova pulled off the two best jumps of her season, but her 14.74m in the fifth round was only good enough for bronze.

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