Armand Duplantis opened his year in his customary winning style at the Astana Indoor Meet for Amin Tuyakov Prizes in Kazakhstan on Saturday (27).
The Swedish pole vault world record-holder faces a monumental 2024 where he will be seeking to defend his World Indoor title in Glasgow, European Athletics Championship crown in Rome and Olympic gold in Paris.
Mondo loosened up with a first time clearance at 5.60m and sailed over 5.80m at the second attempt to take victory in the opening World Indoor Tour Gold meeting of the year. He attempted a crowd-pleasing 6.00m, but three failures showed understandable early season rustiness.
"It wasn't the best performance," admitted Mondo afterwards. "Not by any means, but I know that I’m in good shape. I didn’t feel so light on the ground today as far as running wise. The running didn’t feel that good, a little bit flat.
"Other than that it was cool, nice to be here. A new place to jump. My dream is to continue the way that I am at right now. I always (want to) be jumping as well as I think I can jump. Today I don't really think I did that."
Belgium’s former European U23 champion Ben Broeders was the best of the rest with a third-time clearance at 5.70m.
Lavin lowers lifetime best
Ireland’s Sarah Lavin twice revised her personal best in the women’s 60m hurdles, clipping 0.02 off her previous best of 7.95 in the heats.
The World Indoor and European Indoor finalist then took a further 0.02 off in the final to leave her new lifetime mark as 7.91, as she finished third behind former world champions Tobi Amusan from Nigeria and Nia Ali from the United States who clocked 7.77, an African record, and 7.89 respectively.
Former World U18 silver medallist Magdalena Stefanowicz also started her season brightly. The Polish sprinter clocked 7.22 to finish second in the women’s 60m behind Bahamas’ Anthonique Strachan who won in 7.21.
Pozzi returns to action
Great Britain’s World Indoor and European Indoor god medallist Andrew Pozzi made a satisfactory return to action. Now working with twice world champion and former world record holder Colin Jackson and competing for the first time in nearly a year, he placed third in the men’s 60m hurdles in 7.63. Olympic finalist Milan Trajkovic of Cyprus was second in 7.60 in a race was by China’s Liu Junxi in 7.58.
In the 400m races, Spain’s Inaki Canal was fastest in the men's competition with 46.36. The women's was won by Portugal’s Catia Azevedo in a short track PB of 52.64.
Former European U20 champion Milica Gardasevic of Serbia won the women’s long jump with a fifth round 6.45m. Lithuania’s Urte Baikstyte set a new personal best of 1.92m to win the women’s high jump and Great Britain’s Scott Lincoln won the men’s shot put with 20.81m.
Chris Broadbent for European Athletics