Swedish pole vault star Armand Duplantis opening his 2024 summer campaign in stunning fashion when he cleared a world record of 6.24m at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting in China on Saturday (20).
The reigning Olympic, European and world champion sailed over the bar at the first attempt, adding one centimetre to his own standard for his eighth world record since he first made history in the event when he went over 6.17m in Torun, Poland in 2020.
“It's my first time ever to be in China, and it went as well as I could have imagined. Amazing stadium, amazing crowd, great energy and great weather. In the beginning we were a little bit worried about the rain, and then it stoped and everything worked out, said Duplantis, who has confirmed he will defend his continental crown at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships this coming June.
- Buy your tickets for Roma 2024 here
"It's my first time ever to be in China, and it went as well as I could have imagined. Amazing stadium, amazing crowd, great energy and great weather. In the beginning we were a little bit worried about the rain, and then it stoped and everything worked out.
"This my first time to jump in China and you always get a bit nervous when you jump in front of a new crowd, because it's people that haven't seen you do what you can do. But this went better than I could have ever have expected," he added
Duplantis’ world record came only his fourth vault of the competition, with first-time clearances at 5.62m, 5.82m and then 6.00m before he added another entry alongside his name in the annals of athletics history and then called it a day.
A world record in mid-April! 🤯🥵 on
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) April 20, 2024
6️⃣.2️⃣4️⃣m for @mondohoss600 in the Xiamen Diamond League! 🔥 #XiamenDL pic.twitter.com/x2k2pnNe6y
The other European winner at the opening Diamond League meeting of the year was Portugal’s reigning Olympic and European champion Pedro Pichardo, who already had the competition won with his first round 17.38m before improving to 17.51m with his sixth and final effort.
France’s 2024 world indoor 60m hurdles silver medallist Cyrena Samba-Mayela sped to an impressive 12.55 in the 100m hurdles to shave 0.01 off the national record that had been jointly held by Monique Ewanje-Epee and Cindy Billaud, who had run their times of 12.56 in 1990 and 2014 respectively.
Samba-Mayela had to settle for third in a race won by her training partner and reigning Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, from Puerto Rico, in 12.45 but her performance will provide a big morale boost for the months ahead and her ambition of a first European senior medal despite her successes at the last two world indoor championships.
Another notable performance in the Chinese meeting came from Poland’s 2023 World Athletics Championships 400m silver medallist Natalia Kaczmarek, who clocked 50.29 over one lap of the track for second place behind Dominican Republic’s Marileidy Paulino, who finished in front of Kaczmarek in Budapest last summer and narrowly beat her again on this occasion, crossing the line in 50.08.
Full results of the 2024 Xiamen Diamond League meeting can be found here.
Phil Minshull for European Athletics