Laura Muir and Piotr Lisek created a ‘Super Saturday’ of their own to send reverberations around the world of track and field.
Less than a month before the start of the European Athletics Championships in Belgrade, Great Britain’s Muir broke the European indoor 3000m record that has stood for 11 years as Lisek became the first Polish pole vaulter in history to reach the golden six-metres mark.
Muir is 23, Lisek is 24 and the pair took what has been an impressive winter to a level where Belgrade might just be the start of something extraordinary over the next few seasons.
Arriving at this indoor season on the back of winning last year’s IAAF 1500m Diamond race, Muir has well and truly opened door on the world's greatest distance runners after her superb performance at the Indoor Meeting in Karlsruhe where she won in 8:26.41 to smash the European record time of 8:27.86 which Russian Liliya Shobukhova set on 17 September 2006.
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Not only is Muir’s run a clear world lead, she is now fifth on the all-time list behind Ethiopians Genzebe Dibaba (8:16.60), Meseret Defar (8:23.72), Meselech Melkamu (8:23.74) and Sentayehu Ejigu (8:25.27).
Before the race, Muir tweeted a picture of her running shoes saying 'Race Day! I have worn these spikes 4 times'.
She then listed the races – the Olympics (where she was seventh in the 1500m final after leading); Paris, where she set the British 1500m record time of 3:55.22; Zurich, where she was confirmed as the Diamond Race champion; and then her British indoor 5000m mark of 14:49.12 from last month. The tweet ended with “Karlsruhe??”.
Six hours later she was able to update that with total delight:
Answer:
— Laura Muir (@lauramuiruns) February 4, 2017
5) Karlsruhe i3000m - 8.26.41 AR NR
Woooooohh! https://t.co/AuRttJXlM9
Having been paced by her fellow Briton Jenny Meadows until 1000m, Muir was just behind, along with Kenya’s Hellen Obiri and Ethiopian Axumawit Embaye.
The lead swapped hands between Obiri and Muir until, with 600m left, the Scottish runner tried to break away, avoiding the traffic of the other runners better and storming home to win by over three seconds from Obiri, whose own time of 8:29.46 is the second best in the world this year and a Kenyan indoor record, with Embaye in third (8:49.52).
Quickly the praise came pouring in for Muir with marathon world record-holder Paula Radcliffe:
8.26.41 stunning run and emphatic win. Brit and Euro record and great to see such confidence.
— Paula Radcliffe (@paulajradcliffe) February 4, 2017
Across Germany, Lisek was also making his own impressive statement once more this winter.
The bronze medallist at the last European Athletics Indoor Championships in Prague, he is now the man the rest will have to watch out for in Belgrade – and among the rest is included the legend that is Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie who is chasing his fifth successive European indoor gold.
Lisek was already World No. 1 after his 5.92m in Cottbus on 25 January but at the 18th pole vault meeting in the Stern-Center shopping centre, he broke that mark twice.
He began cautiously, with clearances of 5.43m and 5.63m before the bar increased to 5.73m and 5.83m.
Then, at the second attempt, he created a new world leading mark of 5.93m and prepared himself for six metres. He failed with his first effort before going over on his next go to become only the 10th man to clear that barrier indoors as he beat Croatia’s Ivan Horvat and German Karsten Dilla, second and third respectively on countback at 5.63m.
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European gold is on his horizon in a career where has made the podium three times.
Prague in 2015 was Lisek’s first major senior medal, with 5.85m as Lavillenie broke the championship record with 6.04m. The Polish star then progressed to win bronze in that summer’s World Championships in Beijing (which he shared with fellow Pole Pawel Wojciechowski and Lavillenie, all on 5.80m) before taking a third bronze (5.75m) last March at the World Indoor Championships as the Frenchman won again (6.02m).
But now, after finishing fourth at both the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam and Olympic Games in Rio last summer, Lisek has come back this winter to show that he is ready to give Lavillenie a real challenge in Belgrade.
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