Duplantis retains world indoor pole vault title

Source: Irish Sun

GLASGOW, March 3 (Xinhua) -- No one could stop Armand Duplantis from retaining his world indoor pole vault title here on Sunday, but the height of 6.24m held off the Swede to a new world record.

Duplantis, 24, seemed not so assured at the beginning of the evening as he tried three times to pass 5.85m while two-time world champion Sam Kendricks from the United States and Greek Emmanouil Karalis both jumped over this height in one attempt.

However, when Duplantis succeeded in 5.95m, he was in his own league again. He did try to improve the world record under his name by 0.01m after clearing 6.05m, but it's just not the day.

"This was the hardest I have ever worked," Duplantis admitted. "I had my back against the wall quite a few times today and I'm glad I was able to pull it out on the third attempt. "

Kendricks took the silver in 5.90m while Karalis finished third in 5.85m.

In the women's 60m hurdles, hot favorite Devynne Charlton from the Bahamas was unchallenged to clinch the title in 7.65 seconds and improved her own world record by 0.02 seconds.

French Cyrena Samba-Mayela and Pia Skrzyszowska of Poland followed behind in 7.74 and 7.79 seconds respectively.

Belgium, anchored by newly-crowned 400m indoor world champion Alexander Doom, edged the United States in the final meters to successfully defend their titles in the men's 4x400m relay in 3:02.54.

The American team was only 0.06 seconds behind and the Netherlands finished third in 3:04.25.

With Femke Bol and Lieke Klaver both in the quartet, the Netherlands clinched the women's 4x400m relay title in 3:25.07.

On Saturday, Bol and Klaver made a one-two finish in the women's 400m race with Bol breaking the world record.