World leads for British jumpers Bleasdale and Grabarz | 22.01.2012
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| Holly Bleasdale of Great Britain. |
Bleasdale, the 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships gold medallist and still only 20, moved up to second on the world and European all-time list with her magnificent mark at a meeting in the French city of Lyon.
Only Russia's pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva, who holds the world indoor record with 5.00m, has gone higher under cover.
Bleasdale firstly improved her own British record by one centimetre when she went over 4.72m, and before clearing 4.80m with the first attempt and she then went over 4.87m with her third effort before audaciously putting the bar up to a world record height of 5.01m.
Her performance inevitably put her now into consideration for a medal at this year's three big events: the IAAF World Indoor Championships in March, which will be staged in Istanbul, and then this summer's European Athletics Championships in Helsinki and Olympic Games in London.
By comparison, Isinbayeva opened her season at the Governor’s Cup in Volgograd on Saturday but had to settle for a winning height of 4.70m before failing at 4.80m.
At the Wuppertal high jump meeting in Germany, Grabarz added five centimetres to his lifetime best when he cleared 2.34m with his second attempt after earlier going over 2.30m with his first attempt.
The 24-year-old Loughbrough-based jumper also beat 2011 World Championships silver medallist Aleksey Dmitrik into second place, with the Russian clearing 2.32m.
