Reigning world indoor champion Marie-Julie Bonnin showed her competitive mettle by taking victory with a third-time clearance at 4.70m the Perch'Xtrem in Caen, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting, on Friday (30) evening.
Bonnin led proceedings by clearing 4.40m, 4.50m and then 4.60m, all with first-time clearances which kept her ahead of New Zealanders Imogen Ayris and Olivia McTaggart and Brazil’s Juliana de Menis Campos on countback.
The competition took a dramatic turn when Ayris, who needed all three attempts at 4.50m to remain in contention, seized the lead from Bonnin by clearing a lifetime best of 4.70m on her third attempt.
But her lead proved to be short-lived as Bonnin, who had one attempt remaining, responded by also clearing 4.70m on her third attempt to regain the lead on countback.
However, the enthusiastic crowd in the Palais des Sports did not get to enjoy a final denouement to proceedings as Ayris, who had already vaulted 10 times this evening, retired from the competition after clearing 4.70m.
This left the stage clear for Bonnin to attempt an outright French record of 4.76m - she currently shares the national record with Ninon Guillon-Romarin at 4.75m - but this height proved to be just beyond the 24-year-old’s grasp at the early stage of the indoor season.
Bonnin was a surprise winner of the world indoor pole vault title in Nanjing last March but she has started her indoor season in promising form with victories on back-to-back weekends having opened her season last Saturday (24) by winning in her home city of Bordeaux with 4.57m.
Bradford seals victory with last gasp victory
France’s Thibaut Collet was denied a home victory in the men’s pole vault by Zachery Bradford from the United States in the dying embers of the competition.
A first-time clearance at 5.84m by Collet put him in the ascendancy over the US duo of Bradford and national record-holder KC Lightfoot, both of whom cleared 5.84m on their second attempts. French teammate Baptiste Thiery also extended his evening’s work by going clear on his third attempt.
After taking one attempt at 5.90m, Collet retired from the competition as a precaution due to a hamstring injury and could only watch the remainder of the competition unfold from the sidelines.
Both Lightfoot and Thiery failed all three attempts but Bradford prised the victory away from Collet with a last gasp clearance at 5.90m to break the deadlock, just one centimetre shy of his lifetime best, before taking three attempts at a meeting record of 6.02m which would have seen him join the esteemed six metre-club.
Olympic silver medallist and joint European indoor champion Emmanouil Karalis from Greece, who holds the world lead at 5.93m, was a late withdrawal.
