Armand Duplantis, another of Scandinavia's phenomenal young athletics talents, brought down the curtain on a breakthrough European championships with a record-breaking pole vault triumph on Sunday.
The US-raised Swedish teenager became the youngest man to clear six metres as he set three world junior records, finishing with a remarkable new mark of 6.05m.
On another splendid night of athletics, Dina Asher-Smith became only the third woman to win the European sprint treble as Britain's men and women both roared to victory in the concluding 4x100m relays.
The Olympic Stadium saluted Poland's matchless 33-year-old hammer thrower Anita Wlodarczyk, who won her fourth successive title with a championship record of 78.94m, and 34-year-old Portuguese Nelson Evora, the triple jump winner almost 10 years to the week since he leapt to Olympic gold in Beijing.
Yet it was the youthful mastery of Duplantis that caused most astonishment as, at 18 years and 275 days, he became the youngest man to win a field event in European championships history.
It came just two days after the equally astounding Jakob Ingebrigtsen, of Norway, who took both the 1500m and 5,000m, became the youngest men's track champion in the championships' 84-year annals at 17.
Pole vault silver medallist, Russian Timur Morgunov, who had been cleared to compete as an Authorised Neutral Athlete, also joined the six-metre club while world record holder Renaud Lavillenie cleared 5.95m.
Duplantis, a phenomenon since he started learning to vault at the age of four in his back garden in Louisiana, cleared his world junior records of 5.95, 6.00 and 6.05m at the first attempt.
Even Sergey Bubka, the greatest vaulter of all, did not clear six metres until he was 21 and only three vaulters - including Australian great Steve Hooker - have ever gone higher than Duplantis.
"It was such an unreal competition, I feel like I'm dreaming right now. It's been one of the most special moments of my life and I'll never forget it," said Duplantis, who has now broken 13 world junior records.
Asher-Smith, taking Britain from fourth to first with a scintillating anchor leg, emulated East Germans Petra Vogt (1969) and Katrin Krabbe (1990) as the only women to achieve the sprint treble.
On another fine night for Britain, Laura Muir kicked for home after just a lap-and-a-half of the 1500m final, stretched away and then courageously held on down the home straight in 4:02.32 to become the first woman from her country to take the metric mile crown.
Share
