Tamgho jumps far, Hooker vaults high in Paris

French triple jumper Teddy Tamgho and Australian pole vaulter Steven Hooker were the highlights of the Paris-Bercy indoor meeting.

The junior world champion Frenchman jumped a massive 17.58m with his first attempt, producing the best results of the year, and just one cm shy of Pierre Camara's national indoor record (from 1993). For his third attempt he jumped far again: 17.45m.

"I could have done better," Tamgho said. "There wasn't anybody fighting with me. I was waiting for someone who could have pushed me to jump farther."

The Olympic Champion Australian had quite the same problem, still vaulted high as well.  He remained alone when his last opponent, Roman Mesnil was out at 5.72m. Hooker then cleared 5.87m with his first attempt and 6m for the third one. As earlier in New York and Boston he attacked Sergey Bubka's world indoor record, but the 6.16m was too high this time.

It will be interesting to see him trying it again next Sunday in Donetsk, Ukraine, in the meeting organized by Bubka himself!

In the men's 60m hurdles Ladji Doucouré of France won in 7.54 sec, defeating the Olympic silver medallist David Payne of the USA.

"The victory is good for the heart and the mind, but it's still a long way to go," said the former World champion Frenchman.

Source: L'Équipe. Read report in French