Piotr Lisek in the pole vault in Clermont-Ferrand (© AFP / Getty Images)
Renaud Lavillenie will need to be close to his best form to win a record fifth successive European indoor pole vault title in Belgrade next month as Piotr Lisek confirmed his terrific early season shape in Potsdam, becoming the 10th vaulter in history to clear six metres indoors.
In a competition staged on a makeshift runway inside the Sterncenter Shopping Centre on Saturday (4), Lisek cleared 5.73m on his second attempt to seal the competition from Croatia’s Ivan Horvat before putting on a one-man demonstration for the crowd at the 18th edition of the event.
After clearing 5.83m on his second try, Lisek initially improved his Polish record and world-leading mark by one centimetre to 5.93m before breaking new ground with a 6.00m clearance on his second attempt.
In doing so, Lisek moves to joint sixth on the world indoor all-time list, equal with world champion Shawn Barber, 1992 and 1996 Olympic champions Maksim Tarasov and Jean Galfione and German indoor record-holder Danny Ecker.
There was a German win in the women’s event staged on Friday night; Annika Roloff cleared an indoor lifetime best of 4.51m to take the plaudits.
Barber and Morris triumph in Clermont-Ferrand
Lisek couldn’t quite make it two wins in as many evenings as the Pole had to settle for second at the All Star Perche in Clermont-Ferrand on Sunday (5).
Shawn Barber cleared a season’s best of 5.83m on his first attempt to claim the win while Lisek, who only arrived in the French city on the morning of the competition, tied Olympic champion Thiago Braz for second at 5.71m. Braz passed at 5.83m before three unsuccessful attempts at a would-be winning height of 5.88m.
Sandi Morris turned the tables on Olympic champion Ekaterini Stefanidi with a 4.71m clearance to the Greek’s 4.61m. They will also go head-to-head at the Millrose Games in New York next weekend.
At a high school meeting in Baton Rouge, world U18 pole vault champion Armand Duplantis cleared a world indoor U20 record and world age-17 best of 5.72m to secure the qualifying standard for the IAAF World Championships London 2017.
Duplantis still has two years left in the junior ranks to approach the outright world U20 pole vault record jointly held by Maksim Tarasov and Raphael Holzdeppe at 5.80m.
Collins rolls back the years in Mondeville
Kim Collins turns 41 in April but the 2003 world 100m champion had the beating of his younger rivals in a good quality 60m at the Meeting de Mondeville on Saturday evening.
After finishing second in Dusseldorf midweek, Collins broke the tape first in 6.52 to defeat NCAA indoor champion Ronnie Baker (6.54) and Sean Safo-Antwi (6.59).
Collins’ time was also a world age-40 best and he moves to second on the 2017 world indoor list behind Christian Coleman, who ran a world-leading 6.51 in Blacksburg, Virginia on Friday (3).
There was also a world-leading 400m mark in Magglingen, Switzerland on Sunday with European 400m hurdles bronze medallist Lea Sprunger improving her outright lifetime best from 52.24 to 51.46. Sprunger, who only moved to the 400m hurdles in 2015, also clocked 23.06 over 200m on Saturday.
World leads for Wilson and Butchart in New York
World indoor 800m silver medallist Ajee’ Wilson took almost one second off her world-leading 600m mark at the Armory Track Invitational in New York on Saturday.
Wilson stopped the clock at 1:24.28 to move to fourth on the world indoor all-time list while world U20 800m champion Sammy Watson, 17, improved to 1:27.13.
Fresh from breaking the Scottish 3000m record with 7:42.97 in Boston last weekend, Olympic 5000m finalist Andrew Butchart won the mile in another outright lifetime best and world-leading time of 3:54.23.
And not only does it constitute another overall lifetime best by seven seconds, Butchart’s en route 1500m time of 3:37.58 also eclipses Elijah Manangoi’s world lead of 3:37.62 from Dusseldorf.
At the Camel City Invitational in Winston-Salem on Saturday, Olympic 5000m silver medallist Paul Chelimo produced a final circuit of 26.95 to win the 3000m in 7:45.49 while world 800m silver medallist Melissa Bishop opened her season with a gun-to-tape 2:02.49 win.
Shukh approaches world U20 record in Tallinn
Eight days after setting a world-leading pentathlon score and pending world indoor U20 record of 4550 in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine’s Alina Shukh nearly surpassed that mark at the International Combined Events Meeting in Tallinn on Saturday.
Shukh, 17, scored 4542 to win by more than 200 points from fellow teenager Bianca Salming from Sweden. The highlight of her series was a 1.89m indoor lifetime best in the high jump.
Kristjan Rosenberg won the heptathlon on home soil with a lifetime best of 5986.
At the 18th Hustopece High Jump meeting on Saturday, 2009 world bronze medallist Sylwester Bednarek equalled the world lead with 2.30m on his first attempt to defeat Mexico's Edgar Rivera while 2014 world U20 heptathlon and high jump champion Morgan Lake cleared 1.92m to defeat Ukraine's Yulia Levchenko in a jump-off.
Steven Mills for the IAAF
