Lavillenie soars in warning to Olympic contenders

Renaud Lavillenie fired out a broadside at Olympic pole vault contenders by defending his European title on Sunday with a soaring best of 5.97 metres, a height that cemented his world number one ranking. Lavillenie entered the competition at 5.60m - with seven of the 12-strong field already out, needing two efforts to pass that before opting out until 5.77m, which he sailed over. He vaulted 5.82 at the third time of asking in a duel of gamemanship with German Bjorn Otto, who passed at 5.87, which Lavillenie cleared in his first effort. Both vaulters were then successful at 5.92m, Lavillenie upping the ante when he sailed over a world lead of 5.97m in brilliant sunshine and still conditions at the Olympic Stadium. Otto passed but failed his three efforts at 6.02m, as did Lavillenie. There was no gold-medal showing for Lavillenie's teammate Christophe Lemaitre, the winner of the 100m here and seen as one of the biggest hopes in disrupting the US and Jamaican dominance in sprinting come the London Olympics. Lemaitre ran the bend as the second leg but could only watch on as the Dutch quartet of Brian Mariano, Churandy Martina, Giovanni Codrington and Patrick van Luijk won the men's 4x100m relay in a new national record of 38.34sec. Germany took silver (38.44) and France bronze (38.46). Earlier on the fifth and final day of competition, Portugal's Dulce Felix won the women's 10,000m in 31:44.75 ahead of Briton Jo Pavey (31:49.03), with Ukrainian Olha Skrypak taking bronze (31:51.32). Turkey, fresh from winning three golds on Saturday, could hail another middle-distance podium topper in Asli Cakir-Alptekin, who won the women's 1500m in 4:05.31 ahead of compatriot Gamze Bulut (4:06.04), Ukraine's Anna Mishchenko taking bronze (4:07.74). And the German women's quartet won the 4x100m title in 42.51sec ahead of the Netherlands (42.80) and Poland (43.06). In the field, Poland's Anita Wlodarczyk threw a best of 74.29m to claim gold from Slovakian Martina Hrasnova (73.34), Russian Anna Bulgakova (71.47) completing the podium.