Eleven days after clearing 2.01m on her season’s debut in Lviv, Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh defeated her teammate Yuliya Levchenko in an exciting head-to-head contest at the Cottbus Jumps Meeting on Wednesday (29).
After recording a clear card through until 1.92m, Levchenko needed three attempts at 1.94m to remain in contention for the victory before needing all three attempts again at the next height of 1.96m.
Mahuchikh had only recorded one failure up until this point, requiring two attempts at 1.96m after four successive first time clearances between 1.85m and 1.94m. The 18-year-old always had the lead by virtue of countback but Mahuchikh won the competition outright courtesy of a third time clearance at 1.98m.
Levchenko bowed out at this height as Mahuchikh raised the bar to 2.02m, one centimetre in excess of her recently set world indoor U20 record. The world silver medallist dislodged the bar on each of her three attempts but her three efforts suggested this height is attainable during the indoor season.
The two Ukrainians will go head-to-head again tomorrow evening at the Indoor Meeting Karlsruhe, the second leg of the World Athletics Indoor Tour.
In a high quality competition which saw five jumpers clear 1.92m or higher, Poland’s Kamila Licwinko finished third with 1.94m. German Imke Onnen was fourth with a first-time clearance at 1.92m with former two-time winner Airine Palsyte from Lithuania fifth on countback.
With last year’s winner Piotr Lisek from Poland a late withdrawal from the competition due to injury, former European U23 champion Ben Broeders from Belgium was the best of the European contingent in action.
Broeders finished second behind world champion Sam Kendricks’ winning vault of 5.80m with a Belgian indoor record of 5.75m, just one centimetre below his outright national record of 5.76m.
Fellow American Cole Walsh was third at 5.70m with Greece’s former world indoor champion Konstadinos Filippidis fourth on countback.
Full results here.