Berlin (AFP)
The 2012 Olympic pole vault champion Renaud Lavillenie won the Karlsruhe meeting (Germany) on Friday, opening the world circuit, by erasing a bar at 5.95 m.
In the same meeting, another Frenchman, Wilhelm Belocian, won the 60m hurdles in the excellent time of 7 sec 49, one hundredth off his personal best.
After winning the competition, Lavillenie requested a bar at 6 meters, as he had done in Bordeaux two weeks earlier.
But he failed twice before throwing in the towel, tired.
The 34-year-old champion has not passed this symbolic bar since March 2016.
Former world record holder (6.16 m), he however climbed to 5.95 m without dropping any bar.
He beats Americans Matt Ludwig (5.80 m) and Cole Walsh (5.72 m).
His brother Valentin stopped at 5.47 m and the third French competitor Ethan Cormont at 5.32 m.
The French also managed a good tuck shot over 800 m with second, third and fourth places from Benjamin Robert (1 min 46 sec 30), Pierre-Ambroise Bosse (1: 46.40) and Baptiste Mischler (1: 46.60).
The race was won by Briton Eliot Giles in 1: 45.50.
In the other events, the favorites triumphed.
Cuban Juan Miguel Echevarria won the length with a jump of 8.18m.
Among the ladies, the British Dina Asher-Smith, world champion in the 200 m, flew over the 60 m in 7 sec 08, and the Kenyan Beatrice Chepkoech, world champion and holder of the world record in the 3000 m steeplechase, triumphed over 3000 meters in 8 min 41 sec 98.
© 2021 AFP