France’s Renaud Lavillenie on Thursday night attempted to break his world record in the pole vault, but settled for the gold medal in the event at the IAAF World Indoor Championships.
Lavillenie beat the US’ Sam Kendricks for the championship, successfully clearing 6.02m. He then set the bar at 6.17m in a bid to surpass his own record — indoor and outdoor — of 6.16m, set in 2014 at an event in the Ukraine. He missed all three attempts.
Kendricks, the reigning outdoor national champion who won the US indoor title last week with a personal-best vault of 5.90m, missed at that height and took the silver medal. Poland’s Piotr Lisek took the bronze, finishing with a vault of 5.75m.
Photo: Reuters
World indoor record holder and reigning Olympic gold medalist Jenn Suhr made all four of her vaults and easily cleared a meet-record 4.90m for the gold. Fellow US athlete Sandi Morris won the silver and Ekaterini Stefanidi of Greece won the bronze.
The men’s and women’s pole vault was the only competition following opening ceremonies at the Oregon Convention Center on Thursday night. The meet runs through tomorrow.
Lavillenie, who won the indoors in 2012 before going on to win the gold medal at the London Olympics that summer, passed on five of six heights, but hit the height to beat Kendricks and pumped his fists.
His second attempt at the world record sparked fears when he landed between the pads, but he got up laughing.
“It’s not so often that I do something like that. It happens,” he said afterward. “Pole vault is very dangerous and intense.”
The men’s field also included Canada’s Shawnacy Barber, who won the gold medal at the world outdoor championships in Beijing last year. Barber and Lavillenie battled last month in France with Lavillenie coming out on top. This time, Barber finished in fourth.
Lavillenie earlier cleared the year’s world-best height of 6.2m.
Women’s outdoor world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva, a two-time gold medalist, was not on the field, as the All-Russia Athletic Federation is suspended from competition because of doping and corruption allegations.
The International Association of Athletics Federations, the sport’s governing body, is expected to decide in May whether Russia can compete in the Olympics in Brazil.
Australia’s Alana Boyd hurt her ankle during warmups and was taken to a local hospital for X-Rays. Preliminary tests indicated she had a sprained left ankle.
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