With a bit more than a month left before the start of the European Athletics Championships in Zurich, plenty of promising results poured in from European athletes at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on Thursday evening.
The conditions were ideal for an athletics meet, with high temperatures and a quick track.
Pascal Martinot-Lagarde set a new personal best in the 110m hurdles with 13.06 ahead of Russia’s Sergey Shubenkov in 13.13. The Frenchman had his revenge after having conceded to Shubenkov less than two weeks ago at the European Athletics Team Championships in Braunschweig.
As expected, the men’s high jump contest was extremely competitive and finished with an all-European podium.
The reigning world champion from Moscow, Ukraine’s Bohdan Bondarenko went over at 2.40m to take the win on countback over his fellow countrymen Andriy Protsenko who enjoyed the contest of a lifetime setting three personal bests at 2.35m, 2.38m and finally 2.40m! Russia’s Ivan Ukhov went over at 2.38m and came close to clearing 2.42m.
Bondarenko eventually attempted to break Javier Sotomayor’s world record at 2.46m but it was not to be.
France’s Christophe Lemaitre showed he was in strong shape taking third place in the 200m with a European leading time of 20.11 beating Jamaica’s Yohan Blake in the process. In the pole vault Renaud Lavillenie extended his 2014 unbeaten streak with a 5.87m clearance.
Czech Republic’s Barbora Spotakova confirmed her return to form in the javelin with a brilliant 66.72m ahead of Slovenia’s Martina Ratej with 64.63m.
Finally, in the women’s 4x100m relay which concluded the evening in what could be seen as a rehearsal for the European Athletics Championships, the Dutch relay won setting the only meeting record of the night with 42.40 which is also a national record. Germany was close second in 42.63 with Switzerland taking third place with a new national record of 42.94 to the delight of the Swiss crowd.