Emmanouil Karalis in action in Rouen (© Gaëlle Mobuchon)
Emmanouil Karalis and Sondre Guttormsen both cleared 6.06m at the Perche Elite Tour in Rouen as a historic season for the men’s pole vault continued at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting on Saturday (7).
Karalis won on countback, one week on from his 6.17m clearance at the Greek Indoor Championships, while Guttormsen improved his Norwegian record by six centimetres to move to joint sixth on the world all-time list.
It is the best mark ever achieved for second place, beating the 6.05m cleared by Karalis for silver at the World Indoor Championships in Nanjing last year.
A record six athletes have now soared over six metres or more this season.
Sondre Guttormsen celebrates at the Perche Elite Tour in Rouen (© Gaëlle Mobuchon)
Greek star Karalis, who sits second behind Mondo Duplantis on the world all-time list thanks to that 6.17m clearance in Paiania, opened his competition with a first-time clearance of 5.70m. He passed to 5.90m and achieved that on his first try before managing a meeting record of 6.06m, also from his first attempt.
Guttormsen needed two tries at 5.70m, 5.90m and 6.00m – the latter mark equalling the national record he set when winning his second NCAA indoor title in Albuquerque in 2023.
The bar then moved to 6.06m and he cleared that on his third attempt, deciding to call it a day at that point.
Karalis continued and had three attempts at 6.20m – the first two very close.
The pair will have the chance to renew their rivalry later this month at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Kujawy Pomorze 26, where they are set to go up against Duplantis, on the hunt for his fourth consecutive world indoor title.
Before that, they are all due to clash for the first time of the season at the Mondo Classic – also a World Indoor Tour Silver meeting – in Uppsala on 12 March.
The women’s competition in Rouen was won by Great Britain’s 2024 world indoor champion Molly Caudery.
Both she and Slovenia’s two-time world indoor medallist Tina Šutej cleared 4.70m on their first attempts, but Caudery clinched victory on countback.
