Derek Miles of the USA competes in the pole vault qualification (© Getty Images)
As expected it took well over three hours to determine the qualifiers for the men’s Pole Vault final and that was without even reaching the qualification standard 5.75m which had been decided at yesterday’s Technical Meeting.
In the end, just like in the women’s High Jump qualification earlier this morning, nine athletes advanced to tomorrow’s final; 5.60m turned out to be the decisive height.
World and Olympic champion Steven Hooker was the last to enter the competition yet he qualified top of the rankings courtesy of his sole (massive) clearance at 5.60m. Reminds you of something? At last summer’s World Championships in Berlin, an injured Hooker needed only one jump to qualify for the final where he would go on to win in memorable fashion.
The Australian, who has already cleared 5.91 outdoors this winter, is now fully recovered and it is legitimate to expect him to grab yet another global medal and potentially another World title. Hooker had a fantastic indoor season in 2009 scaling up to second on the all-time list with his 6.06 national and continental record. 2010 has been slightly different so far as this morning’s marked his indoor debut but one knows that Hooker “delivers” when it matters!
“Gold is the most important thing for me at these championships,” Hooker said. “But it has to be a good day. It is a different challenge for me. I will see tomorrow because it could be hard jumping after 4 hours of qualification. I was lucky I needed only one jump to qualify. Many good jumpers did not make it into the final - it can be interesting.”
Indeed several potential candidates for the final poorly crashed out this morning. Competition was delayed for almost 30 minutes due to technical problems with the Pole Vault pegs and this may also have affected some of the jumpers although it was surprising to see World Indoor leader and a bronze medallist in Berlin last year Renaud Lavillenie be the major casualty of the competition.
A 6-metre man last summer the Frenchman tried to explain his disappointment: “I guess this is both the result of the long wait and personal failure. I was in good shape, maybe in too good shape. The poles I used were almost too soft. It's a real pity, because these championships were a rare opportunity where I could get real competition from Steven Hooker and that's the day when I mess it up.”
Other noticeable names who failed to advance were 2004 Olympic champion and US Indoor champion Tim Mack whose third attempt at 5.60 was a no-jump; former World champion Giuseppe Gibilisco whose last attempt at 5.60 looked like a clearance until the bar eventually fell as the Italian man hit the landing mat; and Berlin sixth-placer Damiel Dossevi whose exit at 5.45 completed a “black” day for the French team.
On the positive side, three other men left the Aspire dome with clean sheets this morning and that included Czech indoor champion Michal Balner, Greek record holder Konstadinos Filippidis and US runner up Derek Miles.
The field in tomorrow’s final will be completed by the German duo of Aleksander Straub and Malte Mohr, former World Junior champion Dmitriy Starodubtsev (RUS), Polish champion Lukasz Michalski and Steve Lewis who was the ninth and last lucky man this morning, the British man needing all three attempts at 5.60 to make it through.
Laura Arcoleo for the IAAF
