Reigning European indoor champion Emmanouil Karalis sailed over 6.00m in front of his home fans at the Fly Athens pole vault event, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting, on Sunday (6) evening.
Vaulting against the backdrop of the Panathenaic Stadium which hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896, Karalis cleared an event record of 6.00m on his second attempt to ensure victory at his home meeting against Australia’s Kurtis Marschall who was still alive in the competition having also cleared 5.93m on his second attempt.
Having wrapped up the victory at 6.00m, Karalis raised the bar to 6.10m - a height which has only been bettered by Armand Duplantis, Renaud Lavillenie and Sergey Bubka - but brought the crossbar down on each of his three attempts at this ambitious height.
Karalis, who notches up his seventh career vault at 6.00m or higher, also becomes just the second vaulter to break the 6.00m-barrier outdoors this year after Duplantis who has gone on to improve his world record to 6.28m.
Behind Karalis and Marschall, France’s Thibaut Collet finished third on countback at 5.73m.
Great Britain’s Molly Caudery made an excellent return to competition with victory in the women’s competition which preceded the men’s event.
In her first competition in seven weeks, Caudery was back in prime form as she cleared a meeting record of 4.80m on her first attempt. The 2024 world indoor champion went on to raise the bar to 4.90m but retired after taking one unsuccessful attempt at the new height.
Caudery won by two clear heights from Brazil’s Juliana de Menis Campos who cleared a lifetime best of 4.68m with Belgian record-holder Elien Vekemans third with 4.63m.