Alana Boyd (WA) finished 9th in the pole vault and Craig Mottram (Vic) came 11th in the 3000m final on the final day of competition at the IAAF world indoor championships in Istanbul. Meanwhile in Japan Jessica Trengrove (SA) became the third Australian to record an Olympic qualifier when she finished 14th at the Nagoya Women’s Marathon in 2:31:02.
 
Mottram took to the start as the second fastest qualifier in the 3000m final and still went on to better his time when he finished 11th in 7:48.23.
 
Bernard Lagat (USA) won in 7:41.44, Augustine Kiprono Choge (KEN) was second in 7:41.77 while the world’s fastest man in 2012, Edwin Cheruiyot Soi (KEN) came third but was later disqualified, which meant that Britain’s Mo Farah, who finished fourth, was awarded the bronze medal. However, the results were then revised a second time which reinstated Soi back into third position, and the bronze medal.
 
Mottram said: “That was a bit tougher today than Friday, I felt really good on Friday it was coming together really nicely. I had to use a lot of energy to get up to the middle of the field today and that was always going to be a bit of a risk hanging back early.
 
“I just have to put myself into the race a bit more going forward. The boys here, they’re not mucking around, they’re in really good shape and they’re going to be like that obviously later in the year so I have to get better to competeagainst them. But the signs were there on Friday that these are coming back and that’s positive.
 
“I didn’t expect to be so far back but I knew in the middle of the race it would come together and it did and then you move. But when I moved was probably four and a half or five laps to go and we were still running 60-second pace, which is hard to get around everybody like that.
 
“The idea of coming here was to just practice and see how everything was going, and it’s going well.”
 
The women’s pole vault was a straight final and Boyd comfortably cleared her first attempt at 4.30m but it took three goes to make 4.45m. The Commonwealth Games champion then cleared the bar in her second attempt at 4.55m, which would be the height she would bow out with.
 
Elena Isinbayeva (RUS) continued an impressive run of form from throughout the indoor season, which had seen her set a new world record. She entered the competition at 4.70m and then won gold with a first time clearance at 4.80m. Vanessa Boslak (FRA) set a new national record of 4.70m to win silver and Holly Bleasedale (GBR) won bronze at the same height.
 
Boyd said: “I was getting things on third attempts and I wasn’t jumping technically the way that I have been in training. I don’t know what happened, it’s not reflective of how I’ve been training. I should’ve been able to mix it with those girls and I blew it basically.
 
“I was training well back home. Technically, I probably wasn’t completing my jump as I had done. I was getting upside down in the competition today and I think that was the reason why. I started to get it together on my .55 and even my .65 attempts but I think I’d left my run too late by that stage.”

Athletics Australia