For his third and penultimate outdoor outing before the first big summer deadline, the reigning Olympic champion and world record holder in the pole vault (6.20 m in March) was not granted.

He who hoped to finally jump with favorable weather, competed in the Norwegian competition in intermittent and stormy rain.

This did not prevent him from signing yet another competition above six meters, the second in a row after his 6.01 m achieved in Hengelo (Netherlands) ten days ago.

This bodes well for the young Swede (22), whose outdoor world gold is the only one missing from his list.

"It was a hectic evening with the rain coming and going, it was tiring to manage, so I'm happy with my 6.02m, I still felt good. The competition was long, I didn't had more juice in my legs, but the energy of the public helped me a lot", explained "Mondo".

Kendricks fails

Taking advantage of a rare thinning - while the sun had largely shone on Oslo in the afternoon - Duplantis crossed 6.02 m on the first attempt, before failing at 6.10 m.

After a quiet entry into the contest, the slender Scandinavian, dripping legs on the landing mat, however, got a little fright by only passing 5.92 m on his last attempt, when the rain was falling the hardest.

Before Eugene, a final rehearsal is looming for Duplantis, on his land in Stockholm at the end of the month.

Sam Kendricks, who was to launch his international season on the Norwegian jumper, gave up at the last minute, a sore knee.

If his qualification for the Worlds is assured by virtue of his status as (double) reigning world champion (2017 and 2019), his form necessarily questions.

The American, 30 years old in September, is a priori expected at the Paris meeting in 48 hours.

Renaud Lavillenie capped him at 5.60 m, his entry bar into the competition, before failing once at 5.80 m, then twice at 5.86 m.

His little brother Valentin did not pass any bar: he knocked down the one set at 5.40 m three times.

Ingebritsen in the mile

In the 110m hurdles, four days after coming close to the world record in New York (four hundredths, 12.84 for 12.80), Devon Allen, winner in 13 sec 22, did not repeat a comparable performance.

Before the decisive American selections for the Worlds organized next week (June 23-26), he must still run on Saturday in Paris.

Wilhem Belocian stopped his effort, as a precaution a priori: "I felt something in the hamstring" but "we are not alarmed", he estimated.

On the disc, with a best throw measured at 58.70 m, Mélina Robert-Michon remained far from the minima for Eugene set by the French Athletics Federation (63.50 m).

Before Paris, his best throw of the season remains his 62.61m reached at the end of May in Vénissieux.

Olympic bronze medalist in the 100m last summer, Andre De Grasse won on the straight in 10 sec 05, his best time of the season.

The reigning Olympic champion in the 200m will make a final start before Eugene, precisely on the half-lap, at the Charléty stadium on Saturday.

At the end of the program, the Norwegian phenomenon Jakob Ingebrigtsen warmed up the public in Oslo by approaching the mile, a non-Olympic but historic event, only 14 hundredths of the European record, which dates back more than 35 years (3 :46.46 against 3:46.32 by the Briton Steve Cram in 1985) and has every chance of not resisting for very long.

© 2022 AFP