Jesse Owens, Harrison Dillard, and now Tim Mack. The city of Cleveland adds another gold medallist to its sports history.
In a most gripping of pole vault finals, Tim Mack of the US jumped a PB and Olympic record 5.95 to succeed his countryman Nick Hysong as Olympic champion.
The winning jump came on Mack’s third attempt and lifted the gold medal from out of the pocket of his teammate Toby Stevenson, who had followed Mack’s first-attempt 5.90 clearance with one of his own to stay ahead on the countback and until that time was heading for the win.
Mack ended the competition with three unsuccessful tries at 6.00, the final one tantalizingly close.
The competition among the sixteen finalists had entered its fourth hour as Mack, Stevenson and reigning World champion Giuseppe Gibilisco separated themselves at 5.85 as the certain medallists. Only the ranking was left to be determined.
As the two Americans each succeeded at 5.90 on their opening tries, Gibilisco failed and immediately passed to 5.95, where he exited the competition with the bronze medal after two more misses.
All three eventual medallists had a anxious moment after they had jumped a first-round 5.75 and then elected to pass 5.80. That allowed reigning World indoor champion Igor Pavlov a moment at the top of the standings after his PB-equalling 5.80. But the Russian was not able to improve and finished in fourth place.
Germany’s Danny Ecker and Lars Börgeling took fifth and sixth, respectively, with season-best jumps of 5.75.
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