Having earned his third European title in Zurich last week, the Frenchman had arrived here with the ambition of going through the season unbeaten, but that ambition fell away as he entered the competition at 5.60m, with three rivals still in the competition, only to fail at all three attempts.<\/p>\n
As he lay on the mat after his third and final attempt, he whacked his hand down once in annoyance before rising with resignation to that most unfamiliar of experiences \u2013 defeat.<\/p>\n
However, within a couple of minutes he had his composure and was diligently handing out pre-signed cards to the eager hands of shrill youngsters gathered by the hoardings beyond the final line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t hurt myself, it was just really hard tonight,\u201d said Lavillenie, who winning sequence had already far outstripped the record of 14 amassed by the man whose 21-year-old world record he broke with 6.16m in February, Sergey Biubka.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really close to the bar and the pole slipped in my hand so I was scared,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the most difficult competition of the year for me. It was really hard and I was tired from the European Championships. I tried my best and unfortunately it was not good. Now I will rest and try to return to my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taking full advantage of this momentous lapse was Konstantinos Filippidis, Greece\u2019s 2014 IAAF World Indoor champion, who won with 5.60m on countback from second-placed Piotr Lisek of Poland and Xue Changrui of China.<\/p>\n
Filippidis commented: \u201cIt was difficult conditions but I tried to get over them. I\u2019m happy with my efforts. Every day we try our best and Lavillenie tried his best. The conditions were too hard for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Things soon went awry for another 2012 Olympic Games gold medallist, Australia\u2019s recently crowned Commonwealth champion Sally Pearson, as she was disqualified for false-starting in the 100m hurdles.<\/p>\n
As the pale Australian, who had looked full of energy as she bounced up and down before going to the blocks, looked mournfully on, Queen Harrison led a US 1-2-3 in 12.66. Nia Ali was second in 12.96 and Pearson\u2019s predecessor as Olympic champion, Dawn Harper-Nelson, came home third in 12.99. France\u2019s European silver medallist Cindy Billaud came to grief at the seventh hurdle and crashed painfully into the eighth barrier before limping ruefully away.<\/p>\n
Carter takes his chance<\/strong><\/p>\n US sprinter Michael Rodgers shared Pearson\u2019s fate in the men\u2019s 100m, where he is the Diamond Race leader.<\/p>\n Nesta Carter of Jamaica took advantage to win in a season\u2019s best of 9.96, assisted by a maximum legal wind of 2.00 metres-per-second, with Keston Bledman of Trinidad and Tobago second in 10.09 and third place going to Great Britain\u2019s Chijindu Ujah in 10.10.<\/p>\n On a night when European champions found the going tough, Finland\u2019s Antii Ruuskanen bucked the trend as he won the javelin with a second round effort of 87.24m, deposing first round leader Thomas Rohler to second place with his 85.12m.<\/p>\n Ruuskanen\u2019s team-mate Tero Pitkamaki, the 2007 world champion who returned to the podium in Zurich last week to take bronze, was third again with 84.73m but Czech Republic\u2019s 2013 world champion and 2014 European silver medallist Vitezslav Vesely had a night to forget as he finished last with 76.42m.<\/p>\n \u201cI went back to Finland to celebrate my gold medal and I\u2019m happy again today,\u201d said Ruuskanen. \u201cI felt good but I had some problems with my shoulder; that\u2019s why I only took three throws, to play it safe. I have a lot of power now and I will compete next in Zurich. It\u2019s my favourite stadium now after getting the gold medal and my personal best of 88.01 last week.\u201d<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships winner Mariya Kuchina took the honours in the the women\u2019s high jump with 1.94m on countback from Lithuania\u2019s Airine Palsyte, with Ana Simic of Croatia third on 1.90m, one place ahead of Spain\u2019s European champion Ruth Beitia.<\/p>\n Godfrey Khotso Mokoena, of South Africa, took the men\u2019s long jump with a second round effort of 8.09m, with Ignisious Gaisah of The Netherlands second on 8.04m and home favourite Michel Torneus third with 8.03m.<\/p>\n Mike Rowbottom for the IAAF and the IAAF Diamond League<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Renaud Lavillenie\u2019s winning run of 22 pole vault competitions came to an abrupt and unexpected...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}