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Lisek and Lićwinko hit the heights in Łódź

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Łódź may well now be one of Piotr Lisek’s favourite venues after he won under cover in the Polish city for the fourth successive year when taking the honours at the Orlen Cup on Thursday evening, the seventh of this winter’s nine European Athletics Indoor Permit Meetings.

This year though might count as the best of his triumphs as he set a meeting record of 5.87m, 20cm higher than his win 12 months ago, and his third win in four outings this month.

In the absence of the injured four-time defending champion Renaud Lavillenie, Lisek’s consistency indoors this winter and his recent Polish record of 6.00m in Potsdam makes him the clear favourite for the gold medal in his specialist event at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade in two weeks’ time.

In front of his home crowd, Lisek cleared 5.78m at his first attempt before also going over his winning height at the third time of asking. He finished off his competition with three failures at 5.94m.

However, he was under pressure from his compatriot and former world champion Pawel Wojciechowski, who improved his season´s best to 5.78m when he also went over that height on his third attempt to move up to second place in the 2017 European indoor rankings.

Greece´s 2014 world indoor champion Kostadinos Filippidis was a slightly disappointing third with 5.65m.

Kamila Lićwinko opened her 2017 competitive account with a more-than-satisfactory 1.97m, going over that height on her third attempt after clinching the win with a second time clearance at 1.94m.

The 2014 world indoor champion then unsuccessfully attempted what would have been the 2017 world-leading height of 2.01m. Croatia´s Ana Simic was second with 1.91m.

“I had a longer rest than in previous years over the winter and I can really feel it in my muscles, they feel regenerated. In addition, I´ve done more weight-training and improved on all the elements with which I was having trouble, particularly with my run up,” a smiling Lićwinko told local reporters.

“This competition has given me a lot of faith that the technical problems of last year are behind me and I’m looking forward to attacking two metres again at the Polish indoor championships,” she added, reflecting on her disappointment at being unable to do better than ninth at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Shot putter Konrad Bukowiecki couldn’t reach the same distances as he had done earlier in the week over the border in Ostrava but he added to the tally of home victories on the night and extended his 2017 winning streak to five when he reached with 20.73m in the opening round, which sufficed for the win.

Congo´s Frank Elemba was second with a distant second 20.27m while Poland´s Michal Haratyk, a revelation at this meeting 12 months ago when he was a surprise winner with 21.35m, was more than a metre adrift of that mark in third with 20.08m

On the track, the crowd favourite and world under-20 60m record holder Ewa Swoboda didn’t disappoint when she won the short sprint in 7.20.

Hungary’s Balazs Baji clocked a national record of 7.54 when winning the 60m hurdles ahead of Czech Republic’s Petr Svoboda, who was second in 7.57.

Other wins on the night went to Canada´s Phylicia George, who took the women’s 60m hurdles in a personal best of 7.93, while Cuba’s Yunier Perez was the men´s 60m winner in 6.53, by coincidence the same time that he clocked to win in Łódź last year.




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