Obiena places 7th in Monaco as Duplantis triumphs anew

July 14 ------ Filipino pole vaulter EJ Obiena took seventh place in the Monaco leg of the Diamond League after clearing 5.72-meters at the Stade Louis II. Obiena was actually tied with Menno Vloon, but the Dutch athlete placed sixth on countback, having needed just two attempts to clear the mark. In contrast, Obiena needed three tries at 5.72-m. Both men faltered at 5.82-m.

World record holder Mondo Duplantis remained a cut above the rest, clearing 6.05-m to set a new meet record. He was the only vaulter to top the six-meter mark, with Greece's Emmanouil Karalis placing second at 5.92-m via countback. Kurtis Marschall of Australia also cleared 5.92-m but needed two attempts to Karalis' one. Once Duplantis, the two-time Olympic champion, had cleared 5.92-m, he skipped 6.10m, forcing Karalis into a third failure, and second place.

Pundits might have reckoned that there would be no world record attempt, Duplantis happy to call it a day ahead of a month off competition with an eye on peaking at Tokyo in September. But, ever the competitor, the bar was raised to 6.29m, 1cm higher than the record mark he set in Eugene last week. But it was not to be and three failures at the new height brought the Swede's evening to an end.

In other results, Noah Lyles fired a warning shot at contenders over the 200m at the world championships by scorching to victory, as Julien Alfred notched up another win in the 100m. Lyles delivered a near-faultless run to clock 19.88 seconds to edge Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo into second with 19.97sec. And Alfred timed a very comfortable looking 10.79sec to win the women's event-ending blue riband race ahead of American Jacious Sears (11.02).

Source: news.abs-cbn.com