BRUSSELS (AP) — Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis capped a “beautiful season” with a meet record in the Diamond League Final on Friday that was far from his world record.
Duplantis has broken the world record three times this year; the second time was when he won his second Olympic gold medal in Paris, and the most recent in a league meet in Poland on Aug. 25, clearing 6.26 meters.
But after he made 5.92 that nobody else could match in Brussels, he nailed 6.11 at his first attempt and stopped. That was one centimeter more than his own Memorial Van Damme record set last year, and he said he was too tired to continue.
Afterwards, he said his 100-meter victory over 400 hurdles world record-holder Karsten Warholm in Zurich last week took more out of him than expected.
“My legs felt terrible tonight and I’m just really tired,” Duplantis said. “It’s been a crazy couple of weeks: The race against Karsten and then I had to jump the day after. That took a lot more from my body that I expected.
“With 6.11 I got a good result, but the world record wasn’t meant to be. It’s not easy to do better each time. Everything needs to come together. I had some good jumps tonight and I’m really happy about that. Now it’s time to celebrate my beautiful season.”
Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the men’s 1,500 meters in a photo finish. The Norwegian star timed 3:30.07 after a typical last-lap surge. Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya was barely second in 3:30.93, and just nosed Cole Hocker, the surprising Olympic champion from the U.S., by 0.01.
Hocker’s fellow American, Yared Nuguse, who won the league race in Zurich last week, was sixth, less than two seconds behind Ingebrigtsen.
Ingebrigtsen unexpectedly missed out on a 1,500 medal at the Olympics but won the 5,000 gold. He won the league 1,500 in Lausanne and broke the 3,000 world record days later.
“For the whole season, I had some good races and some bad races so I hope to perform better next year,” he said.
Olympic champion Julien Alfred’s 100-meter clash with world champion Sha’Carri Richardson didn’t eventuate. Alfred won in 10.88 seconds. Dina Asher-Smith was second and Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith was third. Richardson was eighth.
Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake won the men’s 100 in 9.93 seconds in a photo finish from Americans Christian Coleman (10.00) and Fred Kerley (10.01), the Olympic bronze medalist.
Australian discus thrower Matthew Denny broke the 40-year-old meet record. His first throw of 69.96 meters was two centimeters longer than the 1984 meet record of Imrich Bugar. It also was good enough on the night, more than a meter ahead of second-placed Mykolas Alekna, the world record-holder.
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