The men’s Pole vault final turned out to be one of the highlights of the field events on Day 4 of Athletics at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, with Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva denying World Record (WR) holder Renaud Lavillenie the opportunity of defending his title from London 2012.
The Brazilian record holder made the most of the support from the home crowd who cheered him to victory, becoming the only man in the field to make a clearance of 6.03m – a new Personal Best (PB), National Record (NR) and Olympic Record (OR) for the 22-year old.
The event had to be suspended for some time due to a downpour, but by the time the jumpers returned to action, the competition kicked off with the bar at 5.50m. One of the first casualties of the event was reigning World Champion Shawn Barber, who failed at all three attempts at 5.65m, putting him in 10th position overall with his only clearance of 5.50m.
Da Silva had earlier shown signs of contending for a medal after equaling his former PB of 5.93m – only the second athlete to clear the height after Lavillenie, as USA’s Sam Kendricks failed at all three attempts, settling for Bronze with a mark of 5.85m.
The Frenchman went on to make a clearance of 5.98m, erasing his former OR of 5.97m set in London four years ago. The bar was then set at 6.03m but the former World Champion failed two attempts at the mark.
Silva failed his first attempt at 6.03m, before soaring past the bar at the second, bringing the crowd to its feet and making mincemeat of Lavillenie’s OR, which would probably go down in history as one of the shortest lived records.
The Moscow 2013 Silver medallist requested for the bar to be raised to 6.08m but ended up crashing into it, ending the competition with the Silver medal (5.98m) much to his disappointment.
