Great Britain’s Molly Caudery vaulted to a world lead and lifetime best on her season’s debut at the Meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Silver meeting, on Sunday (28) evening.
Fifth at the World Athletics Championships last summer with 4.75m, Caudery continued her dizzying ascent by winning the competition with a second-time clearance at 4.73m before adding a whopping eight centimetres to her lifetime best courtesy of a 4.83m clearance.
Caudery added one centimetre to Sandi Morris’ world lead at this early juncture of the indoor season and from a historical standpoint, the 23-year-old Brit moves to seventh on the European indoor all-time list.
It was also an auspicious evening for Spanish athletes. On the comeback from a foot injury which ruled him out of the majority of the 2023 season, reigning European 110m hurdles champion Asier Martinez was in sharp form, winning the 60m hurdles in a world leading time of 7.49 - just 0.01 shy of the Spanish record - ahead of Just Kwaou-Mathey with 7.51.
"I'm back. My first objective is outdoors but I'm happy to race here against all these great athletes," said Martinez who will defend his 110m hurdles title at the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships on the road to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
His teammate Mohamed Katir was plotting an attempt on the European mile record of 3:49.78 and while he fell short of Eamonn Coghlan’s revered and long-standing mark, the world 5000m silver medallist still won by over two seconds in a world leading time of 3:51.91.
Georgia Bell's breakthrough indoor season continued to gather pace. One weekend after winning over 1500m in Dortmund in an outright lifetime best of 4:03.54, the 30-year-old Brit ran down pre-race favourite Sembo Almayew from Ethiopia for victory over 3000m in another lifetime best of 8:42.16, winning by more than six seconds from Spain's Marta Perez in 8:48.91.
Other highlights included Great Britain’s Morgan Lake winning the high jump with a 1.92m clearance and Finland’s Nooralotta Neziri winning a closely contested women’s 60m hurdles final in 8.06 ahead of Sacha Alessandrini (8.07) and Judy Chalchou (8.07).
Steven Mills for European Athletics