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| Renaud Lavillienie of France. |
French pole vault star Renaud Lavillenie continued his fine run of form with a new meet record of 5.85m at the Cottbus Jumps Meeting in Germany on Wednesday night.
Only the 2010 European Athletics Championships gold medallist himself has gone higher this winter with his 5.92m clearance on home in Aubiere on January 16.
After going over 5.85m, he had the bar raised to 6.02m but was unsuccessful.
Lavillenie, who holds the French record outdoors at 6.01m, has made no secret of the fact that one of his two big targets this winter is Jean Galfione’s long-standing national indoor record of 6.00m, which has been on the books since 1999.
The other goal, of course, is to strike gold and retain his continental indoor crown in front of family and friends at the European Athletics Championships in Paris in six weeks time.
The 2011 European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in the French capital at the Palais Omnisport Paris-Bercy between 4-6 March.
The next stop for Lavillenie on his brief German tour will be the Erdgas Indoor Meeting in Chemnitz on Thursday night.
Second and third in Cottbus were Germany’s Bjorn Otto and Belgium’s Denis Goossens respectively, the pair both cleared 5.50m but were separated by the number of failures during the competition.
There was also a good women’s high jump competition in Cottbus with Russia’s Svetlana Shkolina winning with 1.96m with Spain’s Ruth Beitia going over 1.94m for second place.
Elsewhere in Germany on Wednesday, Great Britain’s 2008 Olympic Games finalist Tom Parsons won the Köln High Jump Meeting when he equalled his indoor best with a meeting record of 2.28m.
He only came to earth with three failures at an absolute personal best of 2.32m, which would have equalled Aleksandr Shustov’s 2011 world-leading mark.
“I’ve never seen such a crowd like this. This is only my second indoor competition in Germany and, after this result, it’s probably my second home now,” said Parsons, in tribute to the raucous backing he got from the Köln crowd.