Devynne Charlton after winning the 60m hurdles at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 (© Getty Images)
Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas produced the second world record of the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 as she lowered her 60m hurdles mark to 7.65 in securing her first global title.
There might have been a third world record as Mondo Duplantis, having successfully defended his pole vault title despite a few wobbles with a clearance of 6.05m, had two out of three decent attempts at increasing his world record to 6.24m.
Femke Bol followed her world 400m record of the night before by anchoring the Netherlands to gold in the women’s 4x400m.
Alexander Doom, the other individual 400m champion, completed the same double by anchoring Belgium to gold in the men’s 4x400m, stealing the spotlight from world 100m and 200m champion Noah Lyles, who ran the third leg for the USA.
A new star emerged in the women’s 800m in the form of Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma, who powered ahead of home favourite Jemma Reekie in the closing stages.
Meanwhile New Zealand were celebrating two golds as Geordie Beamish shocked everyone including himself to move from fifth to first in the final 20 metres of the men’s 1500m final, adding to the high jump title secured in the morning session by his compatriot Hamish Kerr.
That elevated New Zealand to third in the final medals table behind the United States, top with six golds, and Belgium with three.
Charlton, who had spoken of the need to “fix her start” after qualifying only seventh in the morning heats in 7.93, got away superbly in the 60m hurdles final and was never seriously threatened as she finished clear of the French athlete who had beaten her to this title two years earlier in Belgrade, Cyrena Samba-Mayela.
Samba-Mayela took silver in 7.74, with a delighted Pia Skrzyszowska of Poland claiming bronze in 7.79.
Duplantis made relatively hard work of winning in the arena where, four years earlier, he had set the second of his five world records by clearing 6.18m. With Sam Kendricks of the United States in dashing form after two years in the wilderness, the defending champion teetered on the brink of an exit after two failures at 5.85m, but cleared at the third attempt before getting 5.95m second time round.
Kendricks, who had cleared first-time up to and including 5.90m, could go no further, claiming a comeback silver, with bronze going to Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis of Greece on 5.85m.
In the men’s 4x400m, Lyles took over the lead from Matthew Boling and handed it on to last leg runner Christopher Bailey after running a respectable split of 45.68.
Bailey, however, was unable to hold off the late challenge of Belgium’s individual 400m champion Doom, who did to him what he had to Karsten Warholm the day before to complete a successful defence of the title in 3:02.54.
So it was a second silver for Lyles in Glasgow as the United States clocked 3:02.60, with the Netherlands taking bronze in a national record of 3:04.25.
Bol lived up to expectation as she anchored the Netherlands home in the women’s 4x400m final, although she finished under severe pressure from Alexis Holmes, the US runner who anchored USA to victory after Bol collapsed at the close of the mixed 4x400m at the World Championships in Budapest.
There was no such lapse this time round by the athlete who had set a third consecutive individual world record the previous evening as she crossed the line in 3:25.07, with the United States taking silver in 3:25.34 and Britain, anchored by Jessie Knight, finishing third in a national record of 3:26.36.
The women’s 800m final produced another medal for the host nation, although it was not quite the colour Reekie, who finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics, had in mind.
A race which saw the field dawdling along proved too slow for Reekie’s purposes, and while she went for broke at the end, she could not match the finishing speed of Ethiopia’s latest middle distance arrival, Tsige Duguma, who charged ahead at the end to win by almost a full second in 2:01.90.
Bryce Hoppel floated like a butterfly through a boisterous, barging men’s 800m final before stinging like a bee to secure gold as he outsprinted the labouring Belgian, Eliott Crestan, to cross in a world-leading 1:44.92.
Crestan, who had been involved in some bumping with the defending champion, Mariano Garcia of Spain, before taking the lead, faded to third as Sweden’s Andreas Kramer caught him on the line for silver in 1:45.27. Crestan clocked 1:45.32.
Simon Ehammer of Switzerland, whose efforts to win the European indoor heptathlon title in Istanbul last year ended when he failed to record a long jump distance – despite having won world long jump bronze the year before – did everything possible to make up for that disappointment in Glasgow.
And in the end he was able to take his first global title – by the slim margin of 11 points – as he did just enough in the concluding 1000m.
Ehammer had reached the final discipline with a 140-point lead over Ken Mullings of The Bahamas, who was likely to find the 1000m a challenge.
The danger man for him was Norway’s Sander Skotheim, and the latter did everything he could with victory in a four-second personal best of 2:33.23. Ehammer managed his own final surge to earn a personal best of 2:46.03 before collapsing exhausted on the track near the already prone figure of his rival.
Skotheim crawled over to his Swiss rival as they awaited the final adjudication – and it was the man in the red vest who was soon waving his arms in the air as he was confirmed the gold medallist with a world-leading national record of 6418.
The Norwegian earned silver with a national record of 6407, ahead of Estonia’s Johannes Erm, who took bronze with a personal best of 6340.
Mullings blew out his cheeks at the realisation that he had must missed a medal with a total of 6242.
The women’s long jump title marked a huge breakthrough for Tara Davis-Woodhall of the United States as she earned her first global title to go with the world outdoor silver she earned last summer with a fourth-round best of 7.07m.
She also produced three other jumps that were farther than that of the silver medallist, her compatriot Monae Nichols, who recorded 6.75m, with bronze going to Spain’s Fatima Diame on 6.78m.
In the final event of the championships, Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu secured the women’s 1500m title in 4:01.46 from the US pair of Nikki Hiltz, who clocked a personal best of 4:02.32, and Emily Mackay, who took bronze in 4:02.69, also a personal best, with Britain’s Georgia Bell fourth in 4:03.47.
Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics
