Olympic cham-pion Katie Moon of the United States and Austra-lian Nina Kennedy shared gold after tying in a nail-biting women’s world pole vault final in Budapest on Wednesday.
Kennedy and Moon, who won Olympic gold in Tokyo two years ago and took the 2022 world title in Eugene under her maiden name of Nageotte, both vaulted a best of 4.90m and could not be separated on countback as both had one failure at that height.
After a brief chat between the two competitors and the officials, it was decided that both would be world champions rather than having a jump-off.
The vaulters embraced, surrounded by photographers, and to roars of approval from the near-capacity crowd at the National Athletics Centre in the Hungarian capital.
The outcome echoed the men’s high jump at the Tokyo Olympics when Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy were allowed to share the gold medal with the same height of 2.37m.—AFP
