Pole vault and Ras Al Khaimah half-marathon world records ratified

Dubai: World Athletics (WA), the governing body for athletics, has ratified the world records in pole vault and the half-marathon.

Armand Duplantis’s world pole vault record of 6.18 metres and Ababel Yeshaneh’s Ras Al Khaimah Half-Marathon mark of 1:04.31 were both ratified by WA earlier this week.

Duplantis’s sensational indoor season form continued at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix, a World Athletics Indoor Tour meeting in Glasgow on February 15 when he topped 6.18m to add one centimetre to the record he had set a week earlier at the Orlen Copernicus Cup in Torun, Poland.

Sealing the victory at 5.94m, the American-born Swedish athlete continued with a first attempt clearance at 6.00m before having the bar set at 6.18m. Once again he sailed well clear on his first attempt to set a new world record that was only ratified this week.

“I felt like I was over it and once I was going over I knew I had it,” Duplantis told the official WA website.

“You can’t tell how far away you are from the bar but it felt like a good jump from the get-go. It’s the best little split second. Everything builds up to that little split second and the freefall was magical.”

Duplantis won gold as a 15-year-old in the boys’ pole vault at the 2015 World Youth Championships and went on to hold a number of age-group world bests. He won the gold medal at the 2018 European Championships with a height of 6.05m and the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships.

Meanwhile, Yeshaneh smashed the world record in the women’s half-marathon, clocking 1:04.31 at the Ras Al Khaimah Half-Marathon — a World Athletics Gold Label road race — on February 21, clipping a huge 20 seconds from the previous record of 1:04.51 set by Joyciline Jepkosgei in Valencia, in 2017.

Yeshaneh ran close to marathon world record-holder Brigid Kosgei from the outset, as the latter led through five kilometres in 15:07 and 10 kilometres in 30:18. Yeshaneh took command shortly after the two passed 15 kilometres (45:38), eventually covering the second 10 kilometres segment in 30:54 before forging on to a commanding victory.

“I didn’t imagine this result,” Yeshaneh said after bettering her previous best of 1:05:46 that had stood as the Ethiopian national record over a five-month period between 2018 and 2019. “And now, I am a world record holder.”