Topic Missed 199 Centimeters Three Times
While the javelin was still being measured, Brussels was staging a second Serbian story. Angelina Topic entered the high jump at 8:10 p.m., and did so confidently: she cleared 184, 188 and 192 centimeters, each on her first attempt. At 195 centimeters she needed a third try, but she made it, and that secured her a spot among the last four.
There, Topic chose not to jump 197 centimeters and went straight for 199. It proved too big a jump: she knocked the bar down all three times and stayed in fourth place.
Who Won the High Jump Medals?
Third place went to Nikola Olislagers, who also stopped at 195 centimeters but with fewer failed attempts, which is what separated her from Topic. There was a real twist at the top of the standings: gold went to Elenor Paterson, who cleared 201 centimeters and then failed at 203. Yaroslava Mahuchik knocked the bar down three times at that same height of 201 centimeters, so she took silver on an earlier clearance of 199 centimeters, not on the same height as the winner.
What separates the European elite from the world elite shows up in exactly these kinds of details. Topic and Olislagers stopped at the same height, 195 centimeters, and third place was decided by the number of misses at lower heights, not by one extra centimeter. Vilagos missed bronze by a different measure, meters rather than centimeters, but a gap of less than two meters at a world final means she belonged in the same class as the medalists, not behind them.