Jacques Freitag, South Africa’s world champion high jumper, started his indoor tour of Europe with a new national indoor record of 2,28m at the Café Elite Cup International Jumping meeting in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on Wednesday.
He had to settle for second place behind Russia’s Yaroslav Rybakov, who won the contest with a height of 2,31m, while four other athletes shared third place with 2,25m clearances.
Freitag (22), who had not competed since the Olympic Games in Athens, started with two easy clearances at 2,15m and 2,20m before succeeding at 2,25m and 2,28m with his second jump at each height.
His 2,28m improved his own national record set in Tampere in 2001 by 3cm.
Rybakov was a clear winner with no failures until attempting 2,34m.
The only other event was the women’s pole vault with Anna Rogowska of Poland the winner with 4,73m. — Sapa