Raphael Holzdeppe clears 5.68m in Halle, Germany (© Olaf Möldner)
There was further indoor action in Germany last weekend with the unexpected highlight coming in the U23 International between Germany, France, Italy, Spain which took place in Halle, Germany on Saturday 1 March.
Germany's Raphael Holzdeppe, 18, (born 28 Sep 1989) vaulted 5.68m a new world best height for a junior in an indoor competition. This improved by one centimetre the previous junior indoor best of 5.67m which had been held by Russian Leonid Kivalov since the 1 February 2007.
4.64 for Rybova
In the German spa town of Bad Oeynhausen Germany’s Fabian Schulze and the Czech Republic’s Pavla Rybova were the winners during a two day pole vault meeting which took place on Friday 29 February and Saturday 1 March). While Schulze cleared 5.61m, Rybova, who belongs to the Czech World Indoor Team, cleared 4.53m and showed more potential.
The women were jumping on Friday night. After clearing 4.53m and thus securing victory Rybova went for a meeting record of 4.64m, which she narrowly missed. Asked about her aims in Valencia in the coming week the Czech said that she wants to finish within the top eight. Germany’s Carolin Hingst and Jillian Schwartz (USA) finished both in second position with 4.43m.
A day later the men had their event. Fabian Schulze, who had just missed out qualification for Valencia, won the event with a clearance of 5.61m at his first attempt.
Björn Otto, whose indoor form was not as good as in recent years, took second with a third attempt clearance of 5.61m. Michal Balner (Czech Republic), Kevin Rans (Belgium) and Jeff Hartwig (USA) shared fourth place with 5.51m.
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF
