Lavillenie and Tamgho shine in Lille | 25.08.2010
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| Renaud Lavillenie of France won the pole vault title at the Meeting Lille Metropole with a jump of 5.72m on Tuesday. |
European pole vault champion Lavillenie cleared 5.72m to pocket yet another title while triple jumper Tamgho got over the disappointment of finishing third in Barcelona with an excellent leap of 17.63 (+0.8). Russian world junior champion Aleksey Fydorov finished second with a windy 17.18m (+2.4).
Lemaitre, who was appearing in his first meeting since his record breaking exploits in Barcelona, received a rapturous welcome from the crowds but the sprint superstar could only clock 10.20 (+0.4) and was beaten in the 100m by American Mike Rodgers (10.17). Another home sprinter, Martial Mbandjock (10.23), finished third.
In a quality 1500m field, world season leader Silas Kiplagat (3:35.50)of Kenya defeated compatriot Nixon Chepseba (3:36.15) while European steeple champion and local star Mahieddine Mekhissi (3:36.18) finished third. Veteran steeple star Bob Tahri finished fifth (3:36.29), while former European champion Mehdi Baala, who was making his season debut, finished seventh clocking 3:37.05.
Freshly minted European decathlon champion Romain Barras finished third in a special triathlon event composed of shot put, long jump and 110m hurdles, accumulating 2578 points (15.10-7.23-14.48) behind Olympic medalist Andrey Kravchenko of Belarus (2858, 14.04-7.54w-14.18) and Ukrainian Oleksiy Kasyanova (2844, 14.66-7.49-14.45).
Russia’s Yelena Kofanova won the women’s 800m (an U23 event), clocking a superb 1:58.83.
Russia’s Irina Gordeyeva and Uzbekistan’s Svetlana Radzivil shared the spoils in the women’s high jump with both clearing 1.88m.
In a close hammer contest, Yipsi Moreno (70.20m) of Cuba defeated Russia’s Tatyana Lysenko (69.60m).
The meet started with the inauguration of a new track that was marked by enthusiastic participation from hundreds of school children from the region. The city of Lille will host the World Youth Championships in 2011.
Triple Olympic champion Marie Jose Perec, who is an ambassador for the championships in 2011, was also present on Tuesday.
