World champion Tianna Madison received an early birthday present by squeezing into tomorrow night’s final by the skin of her teeth. The American, who celebrates her 22nd birthday on Thursday, laboured through qualifying but her best effort of 6.59m earned her the 12th and final qualification place by a mere 1cm to keep her dream of retaining the title alive.

Facing intense heat of 33 degrees and 61 per cent humidity it was essential the 29 competitors spent as little, energy-sapping time as possible in the steamy Nagai Stadium.

Portugal’s European indoor champion Naide Gomes demonstrated that policy in practice, with an eye-catching first-round effort of 6.96m - the joint-longest leap of qualification.

World No1 Lyudmila Kolchanova matched the distance – but it took until her second attempt to go beyond the automatic qualification standard of 6.75m after a below-par first round jump of 6.47m.

Brazil’s Maurren Maggi leapt a season’s best 6.95m to also comfortably progress and Olympic champion Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia needed only one effort of 6.84m to take her place in the final.

Tatyana Kotova, of Russia, three times a world silver medallist, was left frustrated, however. She fell 2cm short of automatic qualifying and although she progressed to the final in eighth, the Russian spent an unwelcome amount of time in the sun by needing to take all three qualifying jumps.

The 2003 World champion, Eunice Barber, of France, will not be regaining her crown. She achieved a modest 6.51m and was eliminated.

The final is scheduled to start tomorrow at 20.50.

Osaka 2007 News Team/sl