Norris, Emerson and Efoloko all capture gold medals, with the latter leading historic sweep with Dobson in men’s 200-meter final in Finland

By Erik Boal, DyeStat Editor

It began Friday with LSU freshman Jake Norris nailing down a men’s hammer throw title, followed by Niamh Emerson powering through a driving rainstorm to win the women’s heptathlon with an exceptional finish in the 800 meters.

The night was capped by Jona Efoloko and Charles Dobson sweeping the top two spots in the men’s 200 meters, helping Great Britain become only the second country in meet history to achieve the feat.

It all added up to one of the finest showcases by one country in a single day thus far at the IAAF World U-20 Championships in Tampere, Finland.

Norris began to build the momentum at Ratina Stadium in the fourth round of the hammer throw final, propelling the 6-kilogram implement 264 feet, 7 inches (80.65m) to eclipse his own national U-20 record. Ukraine’s Myhaylo Kokhan and Myhaylo Havryliuk placed second and third with throws of 261-5 (79.68m) and 254-11 (77.71m), respectively.

“The execution at the start was very rough and I think nerves definitely set in because I had set high expectations for myself and everyone else was expecting me to win,” Norris told the IAAF.

“I feel like as soon as I started to get into that rhythm, I just relaxed and threw far. It feels amazing.”

It marked the first medal of any kind for Great Britain in the World U-20 men’s hammer final and elevated Norris to the No. 16 all-time World U-20 performer.

Emerson then secured Great Britain’s second heptathlon championship with a personal-best 2:09.74 in the 800 to finish with 6,253 points, holding off defending champion Sarah Lagger of Austria with 6,225 after entering the final event with only a two-point advantage. Poland’s Adrianna Sulek earned bronze with 5,939.

“I’m not used to this at all because I’ve never been first in a heptathlon throughout the competition (against professionals). I’ve always been behind and then in the 800, I moved up,” Emerson told the IAAF.

“It was a completely different experience than I’ve ever been used to, but I don’t think it fazed me. I was solid in everything and didn’t have one bad event. I still want to get better in a certain few, but overall I was really happy.”

Emerson finished with the fourth-highest score in meet history, elevating to the No. 12 all-time World U-20 performer and just missing the national U-20 record of 6,267 set in 2012 by Katarina Johnson-Thompson. She joined 2012 winner Morgan Lake as Great Britain’s heptathlon champions at the World U-20 meet.

Efoloko became Great Britain’s first World U-20 men’s 200 champion since Christian Malcolm in 1998, clocking a wind-legal 20.48, followed by Dobson in 20.57 and American Eric Harrison of Ohio State in 20.79. The duo became the first since the U.S. pair of Stanley Kerr and Derrick Florence in 1986 to take the top two spots in the 200 final.

“I’m never going to get tired of hearing that, it’s just amazing,” Efoloko told the IAAF. “Just the hard work that has been put into this and to finally achieve it, there are no words to describe it. It’s just great.”