Four gold medals on the final day of the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 saw titles going to Armand Duplantis, Simon Ehammer, Belgium’s men’s 4x400m and the Netherlands’ women’s 4x400m quartets.
Sweden’s Duplantis returned to the Emirates Arena where he had seta world record of 6.18m back in 2020 and fulfilled his role as the prohibitive favourite to retain his pole vault title, clearing two heights better than anyone else.
Despite some nervy moments when he seems to struggle to find his rhythm at 5.85m, only clearing that height on his third attempt, he flew well clear with his second effort at 5.95m to clinch his second successive world indoor gold medal.
Duplantis then added lustre to his gold medal by navigating a world-leading 6.05m on his third attempt before three unsuccessful vaults – which in truth were not close but kept the crowd enthralled – at a world record height of 6.24m.
Did you ever doubt the king?
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) March 3, 2024
🇸🇪's @mondohoss600 successfully defends his pole vault world indoor title with 6.05m 👑#WorldIndoorChamps pic.twitter.com/aYUQTNSiXa
Greece's 2023 European indoor silver medallist Emmanouil Karalis took the bronze on this occasion after going over 5.85m, just one centimetre below his national record.
Ehammer ended the first day – with his four events including an 8.03m long jump – in second place with 3558 points, 79 points behind the Bahamas’ Ken Mullings.
However, the Swiss multi-event exponent was started the second day with a flourish. He was the fastest man in the 60m hurdles with 7.62, which would have been close to earning him a place in the individual final, to close the gap on Mullings and then overtook him with a 5.20m pole vault, which was also the best of the 10 men remaining in the competition.
But Ehammer knew that Norway’s Sander Skotheim, in third place before the final event, was a far superior runner in the 1000m and would have to dig deep over five laps of the track.
Skotheim ran a personal best of 2:33.23 but Ehammer pushed himself to the limit and managed to take gold by 11 points with a final total of 6418 to the Norwegian’s 6407, both men setting national records.
“My plan in the final race was to be further away from my rivals before the last 100m but I pushed and pushed and pushed because I so wanted to win this gold. This is where I belong. I am speechless. It was a tough, tough competition. There were a lot of good disciplines. Some of them not so good but all in all amazing. I had fun,” reflected Ehammer.
Estonia’s Johannes Erm tracked Skotheim throughout the final event and ran strongly to fiinish in 2:36.15 to move himself up from fourth into the bronze medal position.
In a thrilling finale to the men’s 4x400m, individual 400m winner Alexander Doom only got in front of his American rival five metres from the line but brought Belgium home in a world- leading 3:02.54 after running 44.88 for his stint, the fastest leg of the race.
Doom was ably supported by Jonathan Sacour, Dylan Borlee and Christian Iguacel who kept Belgium in contention over the first 1200 metres by rarely letting the USA get more than a stride advantage and they combined to finish just 0.03 outside their national record as they defended the title they won two years ago in Belgrade.
Tornado Time 🌪️
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) March 3, 2024
World indoor 400m champ Alexander Doom leads the Belgian 4x400m team to a back-to-back world title ‼️#WorldIndoorChamps pic.twitter.com/2c0kbqEClE
“The guys [on the first three legs] put me in the perfect position. I knew there was something possible at the end. I felt a little bit tired after the last few days but I had a strong kick at the end, so I am really happy. This gives us a lot of confidence [ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics Games], not just for me but for the team. It was really a team effort,” said Doom.
“We won in Glasgow a few years ago in the 2019 European [Athletics Indoor] Championships. It is amazing what you can do when you believe in yourselves,” he added.
The Dutch trio of Liemarvin Bonevacia, Ramsey Angela, Terrence Agard and Tony Van Diepen were third throughout every stage of the race as Belgium and the USA battled for gold in front of them but took the bronze with a national record of 3:04.25
Dutch superstar Femke Bol provided the same service to her team as Doom and was another individual champion to anchor their country to global honours in Glasgow.
Following on from strong legs by Lieke Klaver, Cathelijn Peeters and Lisanne De Witte, Bol bided her time over the last two laps before blasting past the USA’s Alexis Holmes with 50 metres to go and crossed the line in a national record and world-leading time of 3:25.07.
World outdoor champions 🤝 world indoor champions.
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) March 3, 2024
Femke Bol leads the Dutch quartet to the gold medal in the 4x400m 🙌#WorldIndoorChamps pic.twitter.com/RQ1ikVMblh
“I feel so tired,” reflected Bol after her fifth race in three days, which included a 400m world indoor record 49.17 on Saturday.
“But the championships are like this and these girls [her teammates] give me so much energy to run. It is such a great team, you cannot let them down. If I was alone on the track, I would probably not have enough power but I just did it for these girls,” she added.
The Great Britain quartet of Laviai Nielsen, her sister Lina Nielsen, Anna Pipi and Jessie Knight set a national record of 3:26.36 to take the bronze medals.
A plethora of medals also went to European athletes in other events.
France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela took the 60m hurdles silver in 7.74 with Poland’s Pia Skrzyszowska third in 7.79 in a race won by the Bahamas’ Devynne Charlton in a world record 7.65.
A European silver-bronze combination also came in the men’s 800m as Sweden’s Andreas Kramer produced a superb late sprint to finish second in 1:45.27 after overtaking Belgium’s Eliott Crestan in the final metres, the latter taking third in 1:45.32 with the USA’s Bryce Hoppel winning in a world-leading 1:44.92.
In the women’s 800m, local heroine Jemma Reekie couldn’t quite fulfil the dreams of the 4200-capacity crown but took second in 2:02.72 with Ethiopia’s surprise winner Tsige Dugema triumphing with a devastating finish over the last lap in 2:01.90.
Spain’s Fatima Diame took the bronze in the long jump with 6.78m in a tight competition for the last place on the podium which saw four centimetres cover European jumpers in places three to six.
Diame’s compatriot Ana Peleteiro-Compoare, who won the European indoor triple jump title five years ago in Glasgow, took Europe’s first medal of the day when she took a bronze with a Spanish indoor record of 14.75m in the fifth round of her specialist event.
Phil Minshull for European Athletics