Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim grabbed the spotlight again when he cleared 2.37 meters to equal his own Asian and Qatari indoor mark on way to winning the gold medal at the Russian Winter meeting, an IAAF Indoor Permit Meeting, in Moscow.
Mutaz and Russian jumper Ivan Ilyichev were the only contestants left after the bar was raised to 2.30M. While the Russian failed, Mutaz cleared it easily on his first attempt.
The 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist then put the bar higher at 2.37M and once again cleared it on his first jump. However, his attempts of equaling the meeting record of 2.40 did not succeed.
IIyichev finished second on 2.27M, just a centimetre short of his personal best.
Barshim had arrived in Moscow aware that Russia’s Aleksiy Dmitrik had cleared 2.36M in the German city of Arnstadt on Saturday. “I told my coach that I’d certainly make it better,” said the Qatari after he had succeeded in fulfilling his prophesy. Earlier last week, Mutaz had cleared 2.34M to win an international indoor high jump event in the eastern Czech town of Trinec.
The vertical jumps indeed proved to the feature of the Russian Winter meeting with Great Britain’s pole vaulter Holly Bleasdale going over 4.75M.
Bleasdale, the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships bronze medallist who also finished sixth at Olympic Games, needed three attempts to clear 4.65M and lay third in the competition at that point, but then cleared 4.70M with her second attempt before going over 4.75M at the first time of asking in the Russian capital.
Three failures followed at 4.80M, but the 21-year-old had already done enough to win the competition ahead of Brazil’s 2011 World champion Fabiana Murer and Cuba’s 2012 Olympic Games silver medallist Yarisley Silva, who both cleared 4.65M with their first attempts but could then go no higher and were second and third respectively on countback.