Sunday, 21 February 2010 Fit again, Friedrich clears 2.01m in Dessau

High Jumper Ariane Friedrich had a successful competition test at the meeting in Dessau on Saturday (20). After back problems had interrupted her season at the end of January the reigning European Indoor Champion returned to competition with a 2.01m effort.

Friedrich said she felt fine and had no more pain on Saturday where she dominated the competition. Iva Strakova (Czech Republic, 1.90m) and Deirdre Ryan (Ireland, 1.86m) finished second and third.

Friedrich competed at two meetings in January, winning at both Hustopece with 1.95m and Karlsruhe with 2.00m, before she had to cancel subsequent competitions. In Dessau she cleared 1.90m, 1.96m and 2.01m each at her first attempts. She then had three decent attempts at 2.06m.

“I am happy that I was able to jump without pain today – that was the priority,” Friedrich told journalist Peter Grau.

While German pole vaulters had dominated the Dessau event so often in the past few years, this time three foreigners took the podium places. Guiseppe Gibilisco of Italy won the event with 5.70m from Steven Lewis of Great Britain and Russian Dmitry Starodubtsev who each cleared 5.65m.

Impressive junior vaulting

Meanwhile German women’s pole vaulting continues to produce more and more great talents. At the German Youth Championships in Halle at the weekend Caroline Hasse achieved a major performance. The 18-year-old took the gold with a national youth record of 4.40m and then just missed out at 4.51m, which would have been a World junior best and a qualification height for the World Indoor Championships in Doha. Joana Kraft took second with 4.35m.

Jörg Wenig for the IAAF