Flights in Leverkusen: pole vaulters shine at the start of the season!

Flights in Leverkusen: pole vaulters shine at the start of the season!

On January 13, 2025, the Season Opening opened the competition season for numerous pole vers in Leverkusen. The performance of Torben Blech, who took part in the Olympic Games last year, particularly caught in the eye. Tin jumped 5.40 meters and exceeded the 5.55 meters in the second attempt. This height ensured the right to participate for the European Halle Championships in Apeldoorn, for which the standard is 5.60 meters. However, higher than 5.55 meters did not want to succeed that day, since 5.82 meters remained unreachable for sheet.

For the event in Leverkusen, there were also other talents on site. Luke Zenker secured second place with a jump over 5.20 meters and thus fulfilled the A standard for the German indoor championships. Finn Torbohm finished fifth with 5.00 meters. In the male U20, Luca Brill reached second place with 4.60 meters and achieved the standard for the German U20 indoor championships. Naya Füllers became second in the female U20 with 3.70 meters, while Lino Müller also took second place in the male U18 with 3.60 meters.

high jump meeting in Clarholz

At the same time, the 20th Sparkassen Hochsprung meeting took place in Herzebrock-Clarholz, in which a group under the direction of Hans-Jörg Thomaskamp took part. Among the participants were Mateusz Przybylko and Florian Hornig, who had taken second and third place over the last year. Przybylko started his competition at 2.07 meters and then skipped 2.13 meters in the first and 2.19 meters in the second attempt. However, he had to stop the competition after an invalid attempt at 2.24 meters.

Florian Hornig, who took fifth place with 2.10 meters, also fulfilled the A-standard for the German indoor championships. Bianca Stichling achieved a height of 1.83 meters, which also corresponded to the A-standard and showed promising approaches if she headed for a height of 1.86 meters with her last attempt. Christina Honsel climbed the winning staircase with 1.90 meters, which already ended up in the top ten at the 2022 Olympics.

Review of the European Championships

These successes are particularly noteworthy if you take a look at the performance of the athletes at the European Athletics Championships 2022, which took place in the Olympic Stadium in Munich from August 18 to 20. Armand Duplantis from Sweden put his own EM record at 6.06 meters in the male pole vocal vangers. The silver medal went to Bo Kanda Lita Baehre from Germany, which skipped a height of 5.85 meters.

The competition was characterized by changeable weather conditions that affected the performance of the athletes. Only 25 athletes from 15 countries had qualified for the competition. The qualification took place on August 18, whereby only 13 athletes jumped over the qualification height of 5.65 meters, which shaped the formats of the competition that day.

Overall, it can be seen that the past competitions in Leverkusen and Clarholz impressively show how the athletes are preparing for the upcoming championships and what standards they are willing to meet. With numerous fulfilled norms and personal bests, the signs are on an exciting season.