Former world record holder Svetlana Feofanova cleared 4.75m to win the women's Pole Vault on the first day of the Russian Indoor Championships in Moscow on Friday.

Former world record holder Svetlana Feofanova confirmed her return to her very best form by clearing a season's best of 4.75m to win the women's Pole Vault on the first day of Russian Indoor Championships in Moscow on Friday.

Feofanova, whose credentials include winning the 2002 European Athletics Championships gold medal and the 2003 world titles, both indoors and outdoors, gambled everything after a failure at 4.60m by taking her next attempts at 4.65m but she flew clear with her first leap.

She continued to keep the pressure up on her rivals by going clear at 4.70m and 4.75m at the first time of asking before failing at 4.80m.

The victory means that she accompanies her great rival Yelena Isinbayeva in the Russian team that will go to the World Indoor Championships in Doha next month (March 12-14).

Only three women have gone higher than Feofanova this season, putting her in contention for possibly a fifth World Indoor Championships medal.

"Today, my main focus was on my technique and I am pleased with my performance. I think that I can still improve this season. What was good was my mental toughness because you can't afford to make any errors. At the World (Indoor) Championship, I think 4.85m to 4.90m will be sufficient to win," reflected Feofanova.

In a high class competition, Tatyana Polnova was second with 4.70m, which was also a 2010 best for last year's World Championships finalist, while Aleksandra Kiryashova equalled her best under any circumstances with 4.65m. Yulia Golubchikova achieved 4.60m for fourth place.

Feofanova, 29, had to miss this summer's World Championships in Berlin with a leg injury and did not compete at all from the end of July until the start of this year's indoor season.

She has a personal best indoors of 4.85m which dates from 2004 and was, at the time, a world indoor record.

Another good result was posted by Aleksandra Fedoriva, who won the 60m hurdles in a personal best of 7.91, the fastest time by a European this year. She had not run under eight seconds before the Championships but also clocked 7.96 in the semi-finals.

"Before the Championships, I would not have expected such a good result.  I thought I could show something around eight seconds but the semi-finals turned out to be fast, and I realised that I could improve in the final," said Fedoriva.

Second was Tatyana Dektyareva with 8.02 while 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships silver medallist Aleksandra Antonova finished third in 8.05.

In the women's 60m, the 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships gold medallist Yevgeniya Polyakova fulfilled her role as favourite role by flying to victory in 7.19, equalling the fastest time by a European this year.

"The result is satisfactory and there is still time before the World Championships so hopefully I can go even faster. I always set myself very high goals, so my task at the World Championships is to get a medal even though I expect there will be strong American women and Jamaicans," commented Polyakova.

Behind Polyakova, Svetlana Nabokina and Yulia Katsura were second and third respectively in 7.20 and 7.21.

Aleksandr Vashurkin won the men's 60m in a personal best 6.66, getting the verdict ahead of Roman Smirnov, who was given the same time.

Yevgeniy Borisov won the men's 60m hurdles in 7.59 while Yelena Zadorozhnaya took the women's 3000m in 8:55.36.

There were also some super-fast times in Friday's heats of several events.

Tatyana Firova who improved her indoor 400m best to 51.22, the fastest time in the world this year with Yelena Migunova clocking 51.79. European indoor 800m champion Mariya Savinova posted the fastest heat over four laps of the track with 2:00.04. Darya Klishina was the best in the Long Jump qualification with 6.69m.