Friedrich is back flying again in Heusden

Germany's Ariane Friedrich won the women's High Jump with a clearance of 2.02m at the KBC-Nacht meeting in the Belgian town of Heusden-Zolder on Saturday.

Germany’s Ariane Friedrich broke a few local hearts when she won the women’s High Jump at the KBC-Nacht meeting in the Belgian town of Heusden-Zolder, a European Athletics Outdoor Premium Meeting, on Saturday night.

The 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships gold medallist cleared 2.02m, the second best height by a European jumper this summer, to advertise that she is now completely cured of the various injury problems that brought her indoor campaign to a premature end.

“I’m back on track,” said the delighted Friedrich. “I felt this was my first competition of the year. I’ve jumped three times before today and they didn’t go the way that I wanted but I’m satisfied with this even though I know that my jump at 2.02m was technically not very good and I just got over the bar on speed and courage.”

She went over her winning height on her first attempt, before she called it a day after two failures at what would have been a European-leading 2.04m.

“The wind was starting to pick up at that point and I ran through my second attempt at 2.04m so I decided that was a good time to stop,” she added.

She will now just jump at the German Championships next weekend before making the trip to Barcelona to take on the best of the rest of Europe’s high jumpers, including Croatia’s current world champion indoors and outdoors Blanka Vlašić.

Friedrich had a few nervous moments earlier in the competition, requiring her full complement of three attempts at both 1.95m and 2.00m.

By virtue of a first time clearance at 1.95m, local heroine Hellebaut actually lead the competition at that stage but Friedrich flew clear with her first attempt at 1.97m while Belgium’s 2008 Olympic Games gold medallist brought the bar down three times in only her second competition since she gave birth to her daughter Lotte last year.

“I had a good second attempt at 1.97m, I just took the bar off with my heels but I’m clearly not in the same competition shape as before but I still have a couple of weeks before Barcelona to adapt,” reflected Hellebaut.

Ukraine’s Vita Styopina finished third with 1.92m.

Another German win in Heusden went to Hendrik Gruber, who cleared a personal best of 5.70m for victory in the Pole Vault.

Netherlands’ Melissa Boekelman won the Shot Put with 17.96m while the Czech Republic’s 19-year-old Jakub Vadlejich took the Javelin with 78.57m.

Sweden’s 3000m steeplechaser Mustafa Mohamed, three-times a SPAR European Cross Country Championships medallist, showed that he is slowly getting back into form after his winter surgery and had his best result of the season when he ran 8:22.99 for fourth place, behind the Moroccan winner Brahim Taleb who clocked 8:17.71.

However without doubt the highlight of the evening from an international perspective was the thrilling 800m run from Kenya’s David Rudisha who crossed the line in 1:41.51 to become the second fastest man ever over two laps of the track, producing the fastest time in the world since Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer ran a world and European record of 1:41.11 in 1997.