Malaika Mihambo also jumped the furthest at the indoor meeting in Berlin. Sprint star Gina Lückenkemper lost the weak start to victory. In the pole vault, Olympic champion and world champion Armand Duplantis wins with a meeting record and only just misses the world record.
Long jump Olympic champion Malaika Mihambo also secured victory at the Istaf Indoor in Berlin. The 29-year-old from LG Kurpfalz won with 6.81 meters. However, the two-time world champion had problems with her run-up, led from the start by 6.72 meters and, after four invalid attempts, finally flew to the winning distance. Most recently in Düsseldorf, she only won in the last attempt with 6.83 meters.
“The competition is not over until the last one has jumped. That’s why I’m fully motivated and try to do my best,” said Mihambo, who said she had hurt her knee a bit. “I had to find my way back into the competition and make the best of it,” said Mihambo. In the high-class competition, Italy’s Larissa Iapichino took second place with 6.69 meters ahead of Jasmin Sawyers from Great Britain, who was third at the European Championships with the same distance. European outdoor champion and indoor world champion Ivana Vuleta from Serbia finished fourth with 6.66 meters.
In front of 11,850 spectators in the Mercedes-Benz Arena, double European champion Gina Lückenkemper took third place over 60 meters in 7.16 seconds. Born in Westphalia, she started too weakly, as is often the case, and had no chance against Briton Daryll Neita, who won in 7.05 seconds. “I had back problems last week. My back didn’t feel good in the warm-up,” said Lückenkemper: “I’m grateful to the physios that they got me back together. I was surprised how well it worked. “
Lückenkemper was two hundredths of a second faster in front of the 11,850 spectators in the Mercedes-Benz Arena than almost two weeks ago at the ISTAF Indoor in Düsseldorf, where the 26-year-old from SCC Berlin started for the first time after her double triumph in Munich and in 7.18 seconds in second place. The relay European champions Lisa Mayer (7.20) and Alexandra Burghardt (7.22) came in fourth and fifth. In the men’s sprint, Joshua Hartmann ran 6.53 seconds just a hundredth of a second past the German indoor record. Only the Briton Reece Prescod was faster with 6.49 seconds.
Olympic champion and world champion Armand Duplantis won the pole vault with a meeting record of 6.06 meters. After that, the 23-year-old Swede failed three times at the world record height of 6.22 meters. Torben Blech from Leverkusen was fourth with 5.73 meters. European Championship runner-up Bo Kanda Lita Baehre from Leverkusen only managed 5.60 meters and had to settle for fifth place.
