LEAP YEAR
LONG JUMPER TIANNA BARTOLETTA REFLECTS ON HER THREE GLOBAL OUTDOOR TITLES WITH STUART WEIR
TIANNA BARTOLETTA
Tianna Bartoletta: American won a thrilling long jump contest in Rio
TIANNA BARTOLETTA is recovering from an amazing 12-month period during which she won the long jump at the 2015 World Championships and the 2016 Olympics. But there is a lot more to the American than long jump.
Tianna Madison, as she was before she married John Bartoletta in 2012, first succeeded on the world stage in 2005 when she won the World Championships long jump in Helsinki, jumping 6.89m for gold. It would be 10 years before she recorded another big win outdoors.
She found the experience of winning the World Championships in 2005 as a 19-year-old quite different from winning as a 29-year-old. For one thing, she feels that she did not receive the recognition she deserved for winning first time around.
“A lot of people thought 2005 was an accident or a fluke,” she said. “The weather wasn’t great and some people who were expected to jump well, didn’t. At the time it was the shortest jump ever to win the World Championships. There was a lot of noise. But to me, I had a medal and I had proved something to myself. I was the best on the day and that was worth something.
“At 20 it was ‘oh my goodness, what happens next? What about school? What about going pro?’ It was quite scary and the sense of accomplishment didn’t last that long.”