Outstanding Emmanouil Karalis!
The bronze Olympic medalist in the pole vault cleared 6.17 m at the Panhellenic Indoor Championships in Paiania and made history.
Karalis first jumped 6.07 m, breaking his own Greek national record of 6.05 m, and then raised the bar to 6.17 m.
He did not make it on his first attempt, but on his second he cleared 6.17 m, showing that he can realistically hope to break the world record if he continues at this pace.
The world record is 6.30 m and belongs to Armand Duplantis.
The pole vault champion opened with jumps at 5.70 m and 5.90 m. The 6.17 m is, of course, the top performance in the world for this season.
With his jump at 6.17 m, he moved ahead of Sergey Bubka (6.15 m) and Renaud Lavillenie (6.16 m). Only Duplantis has jumped higher.
Karalis failed twice at 6.31 m and, after not breaking the world record, left the competition to a standing ovation.
There was also an excellent competition with jumps of 5.48 m by Antonis Santa of AEK and Giorgos Papanastasiou of PAOK. For the latter, the mark was an outright personal best both outdoors and indoors.
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