Reims, France - Abdoulaye Diarra  provided the main attraction during the 3rd meeting of the French National Indoor Circuit held yesterday night (3) in Reims. The Frenchman matched the U23 National Record set 20-years-ago by Jean-Charles Gicquel.

Diarra, 20, opened the competition at 2.10m and 2.13 at his first attempts. After a pass at 2.16, he needed a second chance to jump 2.19.

“I felt good today, but what I missed was the challenge of my training partner Mathias Cianci who was eliminated at 2.19, I would have liked to have him beside me to push me to jump higher”.

The only remaining competitor, Diarra raised the bar to 2.27, 2cm above his personal best and an attempt to equal the U23 national record. He did it at his second try.

Consumed by the nervous fatigue, he was no near to jumping 2.30 on his three attempts. “Whenever I take part to a competition, I’m aiming to break my personal best. My motto is: No limits.I want to improve again and again, and prove myself in the senior category”.

Coached by Hervé Bouffinier in Dreux, the 1.83m and 79kg muscular athlete doesn’t have the morphology of a high jumper.

“I’m basically a Triple Jumper!”, Diarra explained. “My training is geared towards Triple Jump, it’s about spring, feet strength and that’s what High Jump is about as well”.

Owner of a 16.30m personal best set two years ago, he took part in European Junior Championships at both events.

“Sometimes, I would do High Jump and Triple Jump simultaneously in competitions”, recalls Diarra, “but it’s too tiring and risky, that’s how I got injured last year and missed the whole outdoor season. I’m not going to duplicate this mistake, and even though I will still take part to horizontal jump competitions, I will put the emphasis at High Jump, that’s where I have now the best results. Now I know that I will need to jump 2.27 at least during the National Champs (20-21 February in Liévin) in order to get qualify to European Indoor Championships (6-8 March in Turin).”

Collonvillé makes indoor outing

In Reims, some other athletes placed themselves as strong contenders for the national indoor titles: Thélia Sigère and Antony Couffe were the female and male 200m winners in 23.58 and 21.32, respectively. Sandra Gomis won the 60m Hurdles in 8.18, and multi-events specialist Marie Collonvillé, the national recordholder for Heptathlon and Pentathlon ran 8.73 and took the Long Jump in 6.09.

P-J Vazel for the IAAF