Russian Yelena Isinbayeva broke her own women's world pole vault record on Tuesday when she cleared 5.04 meters at her third attempt at the Monaco Grand Prix. Isinbayeva, who bettered her previous mark of 5.03 meters set at the Rome Golden League meeting on July 11, recorded her 13th outdoor world record and 23rd overall on a warm, still night in the principality. The Olympic and world champion had come close to vaulting 5.04 meters last Friday in London, where she cleared the bar with her third attempt but brought it down during her descent. Former world record holder Asafa Powell had earlier won his third consecutive 100m race of the season in his last major meeting before the Beijing Olympics starting next week. The Jamaican Commonwealth champion clocked 9.82 seconds, his best time this year. Only compatriot Usain Bolt, who took the world record from Powell on May 31, and American world champion Tyson Gay have run faster in 2008. Powell shaved 0.06sec off his previous season-best of 9.88, set last Tuesday in Stockholm, where he saw off Bolt. Neither Bolt nor Gay were in Tuesday's race where American Darvis Patton finished second in 9.98 while Powell's compatriot and training partner Nesta Carter took third place in 10.02. “I believe I can,” Powell said when asked whether he thought he could recapture the world record of 9.72 seconds set by Bolt in New York on May 31 this year. The women's 100m was also won by a Jamaican runner, Kerron Stewart, in 10.94. She narrowly outsprinted compatriot Sherone Simpson, who came second in 10.95. American Torri Edwards, the leading 2008 performer with 10.78, was third in 11.02. Britain's Martin Rooney profited from the absence of US 400m masters Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt to win over one lap in a personal best 44.72 seconds. Daniel Kipchirchir Komen set a year's best of three minutes 31.49 seconds for the men's 1,500m, narrowly beating compatriot Shedrack Kibet Korir, who came second in 3:31.94. Jamaica's Melaine Walker repulsed the challenge of American Tiffany Ross-Williams to clock a year's best 53.48 seconds for the women's 400m hurdles. Ross-Williams finished a close second in 53.54 with compatriot Sheena Tosta third in 53.58. Home fans had little to cheer as France's former heptathlon and long jump world champion Eunice Barber saw her season hit a new low when she came in bottom of the heap in the long-jump in Monaco. The 33-year-old Sierra Leone-born athlete – world champion in the heptathlon in 1999 and then long jump queen in 2003 – had already failed to qualify for her fifth Olympic Games last Saturday in failing by 18 centimeters to reach the qualifying mark for the long jump at the French national championships. This time, she came in tenth and rank last with a jump of 6.27 meters as Portugal's Naide Gomes won with 7.12 meters for a year best mark, besting the 7.04 she shared with Russian Lyudmila Kolchanova. “I am very happy,” smiled Powell. “I feel great, very fresh. I've got a world record in my legs. I am very confident. My goal is to be consistent.” A tough headwind had compromised Powell's attempts to have a tilt at Bolt's mark although he still cruised to a weekend victory at the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace in 9.94sec. But three quickfire wins on the trot have laid to rest any doubts that Powell might not have bounced back sufficiently from a shoulder problem which dogged him for several weeks. Cramping in his groin also forced him to scratch from the final of the 100m earlier this month at the Golden League meeting in Rome.
