Devynne Charlton of the Bahamas ran a 60m straight ME time. Reetta Hurske would have been in the finals in her last season’s hall attack and medal level there too.
Swedish Armand Duplantis attempted the ME height of 624 for the second time this hall season in the pole vault finals of the World Championships in Glasgow on Sunday evening.
But before that point was reached, the athlete who was considered even the surest winner of the Games was tougher than in years. Duplantis took his seventh ranking victory in a row with the top result of his reign with 605.
One detail describes very well the kind of purgatory Duplantis was able to defend his WC indoor gold from two years ago in Belgrade, where he jumped the then ME 620. Since then, he has improved it centimeter by inch to 623.
Since the beginning of 2021, Duplantis has first achieved EC indoor gold (605), Olympic gold (602), WC indoor gold (620), WC gold (621), EC gold (606), WC 2023 gold (610).
In all of those races, he dropped the bar at or before his winning streak a total of four times. Four championship golds came without any falls.
When Duplantis took his first adult competition victory, European Championship gold in Berlin 2018 (605, first six-meter clearance), he fell once in the final. However, the budding winning streak was interrupted the following year at the World Championships in Doha, when the USA, who had jumped silver in Glasgow Sam Kendricks won and the Swede finished with the same result (597) for silver.
Another sound on the clock
In Glasgow’s MM hall, there was another sound on the clock, as the American Swede who grew up in Louisiana, who crossed the first with 565, needed all three attempts at 585, two at 595 and three again at his final height of 605. This is completely exceptional for him.
Duplantis had “only” jumped 602 by the time of the World Championships this reign, but his father and coach Greg Duplantis assured Urheilu on Saturday that his son’s condition is better than the results of the season so far. The assessment finally held its own.
Sunday night’s only Finn was in the 60-meter hurdles Reetta Hurske, who finished fifth in his semi-final with a time of 8.00. Hurskee’s glorious indoor season that brought European Championship gold last year took a negative turn when the rower hurt himself badly at the games in Poland at the beginning of February and did not have time to recover to top condition.
– In a way, I’m relieved that this season is over and at the same time really proud that I dared to cross the line. Yes, there is probably still work to be done in the entire government, Hurske stated.
There was indeed room for speculation. The World Cup gold went to the Bahamas Devynne to Charlton With ME time 7.65, but Poland was enough for bronze For Pia Skrzyszowska time 7.79. It is exactly the same as Hurskee’s Finnish record, which the athlete hit twice under the roof a year ago and also won the EC indoor final in Istanbul with it.
You can find everything about Glasgow’s WC halls in Urheilu’s follow-up article.