The superheroes put on a show

Sixteen Olympic champions made the trip to Paris for the MEETING AREVA, the ninth leg of the Diamond League, which took place in glorious sunshine. The least that can be said is that virtually all of them came up trumps. Starting with the greatest star of athletics, Usain Bolt, who arrived in a 2CV like all the other superheroes, but went on to send the stopwatches into turmoil to round off what was a fantastic evening. The “Lightning Bolt” won the 200m and broke the meeting record, whilst Christophe Lemaitre secured a fine third place. Though the Stade de France is still awaiting its first world record, this Saturday did see a number of personal bests tumble, as well as a European record, which was broken by Frenchman Mahiedine Mekhissi in the 3,000m steeplechase, three national records (French record for Mekhissi, Israeli record for Hanna Knyazheva in the triple jump and the Czech Republic record for Zuzana Hejnova in the 400m), and three meeting records (Usain Bolt in the 200m, Tirunesh Dibaba in the 5,000m and Ezekiel Kemboi in the 3,000m steeplechase).

Meeting in Moscow in five weeks

Among the evening’s other fine performances were the logical victories to Robert Harting in the discus, Kirani James in the 400m, Aries Merritt in the 110m hurdles, Valerie Adams in the shot put, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 100m (by a hundredth of a second against Nigerian Okagbare) and Anna Chicherova in the high jump. Finally, the only Olympic champion not to have been up to par was the British long jumper Greg Rutherford, who only managed fourth.

Of the French contingent, following on from the European record broken by Mahiedine Mekhissi, the highlight of the evening was the easy win by Renaud Lavillenie in the pole vault, even though he then failed in an attempt at his personal best of 6.02m. Prior to that, the Stade de France reserved a standing ovation for Romain Mesnil, twice world No.2, who was competing in the final competition of his career. However, retirement is out of the question for Nouredine Smail (3,000m steeplechase), Thomas Martinot-Lagarde (110m hurdles), Bob Tahri (1,500m), Florian Carvalho (1,500m), Simon Denissel (1,500m) and Jimmy Vicaut (200m), who all secured their ticket for the Moscow Worlds, which kick off in five weeks’ time. See you on 5 July 2014 for the next MEETING AREVA!