France's Renaud Lavillenie might have struggled to reach the final at these European Athletics Indoor Championships, but when it came to the main event, he was back to his best to win the title for the fourth successive time and break the championship record.
A remarkable achievement, and even more so because he had just about made it over 5.70m on Friday to make it through. This time, he did not enter the final until 5.75m, which he cleared with a huge amount to spare, and then did not vault again until 5.90m, which he went over at the first attempt.
All the toil and pain that the rest of the field had to go through for almost two hours for two others to reach 5.85m was punctured by one man at his ominous best.
Gold was settled at that point, even though Russia's Aleksandr Gripich tried and failed to break 5.90m and 5.95m. He took silver ahead of Poland's Piotr Lisek on countback but now came the show-stopping bit.
The bar was raised by Lavillenie to 6.04m. He missed it at the first go, but then went over next time, with the whole arena, even the men's heptathletes and the rest of the pole vaulters, clapping him on his way.
The delight was there as he started celebrating before he hit the mat, breaking his championship record of 6.03m from Paris in 2011 and extending his world lead as a warm-up to attempting the grand finale as he looked towards his world record of 6.16m.
It was not to be, as he made three fine attempts, but it was a fabulous performance as once more proved he is just unbeatable on these big occasions.
'It was a very good day for me,' said Lavillenie. 'I don't know where the limits are and maybe I can go over 6.20m.'
YESSSSSSS !!!!!!!!
CHAMPION D'EUROPE x 4 !!!!!!
CHAMPIONSHIP RECORD 6m04!!!!!
So happy !
Thanks… https://t.co/zvbNmi7dS9
— Renaud LAVILLENIE ® (@airlavillenie) March 7, 2015
Serbia's Ivana Spanovic has a major gold medal at last as she triumphed in a superb long jump competition which saw Romania's Florentina Marincu break the European Athletics Junior record. After two bronzes at world level, outdoors and indoors in 2013 and 2014 respectively, Spanovic moved to the second step on the podium behind France's Eloyse Lesueur at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich last summer.
Now she has the title she has craved after winning with a third round leap of 6.98m, a national record as she broke her best by six centimetres ahead of Germany's Sosthene Moguenara delighted with her silver and 6.83m. The surprise came from 18-year-old Marincu third with 6.79m, a 12 centimetre improvement on her previous best.
After sharing world indoor high jump gold in Sopot 12 months ago with Poland's Kamila Licwinko, Russia's Mariya Kuchina is the outright champion this time.
Kuchina triumphed in a jump off with Italy's Alessia Trost, clearing 1.97m to take gold. World Leader coming into the championships with 2.02m, Licwinko had to settle for third place with 1.94m.
And almost seven years after winning the Olympic triple jump title in Beijing, Portugal's Nelson Evora is the European indoor champion after a dramatic final.
He had led from the third round with 16.98m before Spain's Pablo Torrijos then moved in front in round five with 17.04m, only for Evora to respond with the very next jump which took him to 17.15m before securing gold in the final round with 17.21m.