Eaton nears new world record, retains title

All-round great Ashton Eaton narrowly missed out on a world record in retaining his heptathlon title at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland tonight.

The American legend, whose new physio Ciaran McDonagh is Irish, needed to complete the final discipline, the 1000m, inside 2 minutes, 33.5 seconds to break the record he set in winning in Istanbul two years ago.

However, he finished 1.3 seconds outside, but still won with the second-highest tally of all-time – 6632 points.

This put him over 300 points clear of silver-medalist Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus.

There were major shocks in the two sprint finals of the night.

First, the women’s 60m hurdles final saw American Nia Ali pip Australian Sally Pearson to gold by five-hundredths-of-a-second.

Then in a blanket finish, 66-1 outsider Richard Kilty won the men’s 60m crown for Britain. He won in 6.49 seconds, with four-hundredths covering the top six.

Hosts Poland won their first medal of the Games, and it was gold, when Kamila Licwinko tied for victory in the women’s high jump with Russian Maria Kuchina.

The two leaders decided after tying at two metres that they should split the victory. Spain’s Ruth Beitia was third.

Sweden’s Abebe Aregawi was a resounding winner of the women’s 1500 metres, taking gold by a seven-second margin.

The men’s equivalent went to gun-to-tape winner Ayanleh Souleiman of Djibouti.

Veteran Czech Pavel Maslak won the men’s 400m crown, with American Francena McCorory winning the women’s two-lap final.

New Zealand’s Valerie Adams continued her dominance of the women’s shot put by winning by a margin of almost a metre over German Christina Schwanitz.