Inika McPherson cleared a 1.92-meter height with relative ease Thursday to make it to Saturday’s final round of the women’s high jump at the IAAF World Championships in London.

Saturday, nothing was going for the 2005 Port Arthur Memorial alumna at 1.95 meters.
McPherson missed three straight attempts at that height and finished ninth, but wound up the highest-finishing American in the event, a year after she was 10th in the Olympic Games (second among Americans to fourth-place Chaunte Lowe).

Maria Lasitskene, a Russian who is considered an authorized neutral athlete at worlds, won the event as the only woman to clear 2.03 meters, or 6 feet, 8 inches.

Ukrainian Yuliia Levchenko cleared 2.01 for second place, but earned three strikes at 2.03. Kamila Kicwinko of Poland was third at 1.99 after trying to match Lasitskene on her final attempt.

Marie-Laurence Jungfleisch of Germany was fourth at 1.95, followed by Britons Katarina Johnson-Thompson (1.95, one miss at 1.92) and Morgan Lake (one miss at 1.95), Mirela Demireva of Bulgaria and Airine Palsyte of Lithuania both at 1.92, and Americans McPherson and Vashti Cunningham (two misses at 1.92). Olympic champion Ruth Beitia of Spain ended up 12th.

Lasitskene’s personal best of 2.06 came last month in Lausanne, Switzerland, 3 centimeters shy of Stefka Kostadinova’s world record set in the 1987 worlds in Rome.

McPherson tied Johnson-Thompson for the Group A victory during Thursday’s qualifying.

— I.C. Murrell