Yelena Isinbayeva (RUS) (© Getty Images)
MonteCarloFor the second weekend in a row the world all-time lists for indoor competition have been pummeled with an array of great performances highlighted by the two centimetres improvement** in the World Pole Vault record on Saturday (16) by World, Olympic and European champion Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia.
Isinbayeva soared over the 4.95m high bar in Donetsk, Ukraine, to start her indoor season with her usual high class flourish.
Saturday was quite a day for indoor action, as in Birmingham, UK, another multiple championship winning and World record holding super star, Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele improved the unofficial World best for Two Miles. Chasing 8:04.69, Bekele stopped the clock at 8:04.35 to eclipse Haile Gebrselassie’s 2003 run.
With three World Indoor records** being set over the previous weekend (9-10 Feb) - 1500m, 60m Hurdles, and 4x800m Relay - and three-days of high level excitement at the Asian Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar (14-15 Feb) also taking place last week, indoor halls around the globe are abuzz with top performances as the final entry deadline for the 12th IAAF World Indoor Championships, Valencia, Spain (7 – 9 March) fast approaches.
Qualifying Performances must be achieved during the period of 1 January 2007 to 25 February 2008 (midnight Monaco time).
The exception is the Combined Events where eight athletes are invited by the IAAF for the men’s Heptathlon and the women’s Pentathlon. These invitations are based upon the top four athletes from the 2007 Outdoor Lists and the top four athletes from the 2008 Indoor Lists, and deadline for those latter performances is set for today, 18 February.
IAAF
**World Indoor record(s) pending the usual ratification procedures
