Fresh from his incredible clearance of 6.17m at the Greek Indoor Championships to move up to second on the all-time list, Emmanouil Karalis heads the men’s pole vault line-up at the Perche Elite Tour in Rouen on Saturday (7).
The event will be streamed live on the European Athletics YouTube channel from 18:15 CET.
Already fully established as a six-metre vaulter, Karalis’s extraordinary clearance in Painaia on Saturday (28) now makes him a legitimate threat to the dominance of world record holder and two-time Olympic champion Mondo Duplantis.
The iconic Swede will not be competing in the French city, but Karalis will still have a talented field to overcome if he is to maintain his superb indoor form at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting.
It includes the formidable USA trio of national record holder KC Lightfoot, two-time world champion Sam Kendricks and Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Chris Nilsen. Norway’s 2023 European indoor champion Sondre Guttormsen is also in the field.
Moser, Caudery, Bonnin and Šutej lead strong women's entry
The women’s competition looks equally fascinating and will feature the first international appearance of the season for European champion Angelica Moser of Switzerland.
She will go up against the current and former world indoor champions, Marie-Julie Bonnin of France and Molly Caudery of Great Britain, plus world bronze medallist Tina Šutej of Slovenia.