There’s nothing better than a Pole Vault competition of four-plus hours to tighten up a Decathlon competition.
Roman Šebrle capitalized on his superior vaulting prowess relative to that of Dmitriy Karpov to dramatically cut into the Kazakh’s overall lead. With a best of 5.00, the Czech emerged from the eighth event with a total of 7316, as Karpov could leap only 4.60 and saw his overall lead shrink to 46 after amassing 7362 with two disciplines remaining.
Šebrle’s 5.00 was an impressive performance, as he appeared to have at least 20cm of clearance over the bar. He blew kisses to the audience and shot a valedictory fist into the air, as if to signal the start of his charge to the finish.
But the magnitude of his clearance once again proved to be an inaccurate predictor of success at the next height of 5.10, at which the Czech failed three times.
Bryan Clay’s best of 4.90 kept him in third with an aggregate 7265, but as a result of Karpov’s lesser performance, the top three are all within striking range of each other.
Far removed from the top three competitors was Chiel Warners, who jumped a PB 4.90 and moved into fourth place with 6981. Dean Macey slipped to fifth after a sub-par 4.40 brought his total to 6924, and Claston Bernard currently closes out the top six at 6854, also with a 4.40 performance.
The day’s top performance of 5.40 came from the defending Olympic champion, Erki Nool. The Estonian was captured napping repeatedly by the television cameras while he awaited his starting height of 5.10. His eight-event total of 6773 moved him from fifteenth to eighth.
Defending World champion Tom Pappas had an unfortunate day on the vaulting runway, apparently injuring his left foot during warm-ups and abandoning the event after his first attempt at an opening 4.60. As a result, the tall American earned no points for the Pole Vault and held a 6182 total at the time he withdrew. .
EG
