NCAA Indoor Champs — Men’s Field

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, March 10 — Our coverage of the NCAA Indoor will be divided into 4 parts: men & women, track & field. The sections will be updated as the weekend plays out.

The men’s field events from Friday:

Pole Vault — Sondre Guttormsen (Princeton) 19-8¼ =CR

There’s now a 3-way tie for the highest collegiate vault ever. With his 19-8¼ (6.00) clearance Sondre Guttormsen equaled the absolute CR set outdoors in ’19 by Mondo Duplantis of LSU and matched indoors in ’21 by Baylor’s KC Lightfoot. The 23-year old Norwegian won his third successive NCAA title, which began with his indoor win last year.

Guttormsen followed a script not uncommon to him, passing the first two heights and then missing his first jump at an opening 17-11 (5.46). He then passed his remaining two jumps, letting the bar go to 18-1 (5.51), which he cleared on first attempt, putting him in a tie for 3rd with Kyle Rademeyer of South Alabama and Youngstown State’s Dorian Chaigneau, but trailing Clayton Simms of Kansas and Zach Bradford of Texas Tech.

Passing the next three heights, Guttormsen found himself tied for 8th with the bar set at 18-8¾ (5.71). Guttormsen cleared on first effort, now solely in 1st ahead of Rademeyer, who also cleared on first attempt but trailed on misses. Bradford cleared on second with only Michigan Stater Trevor Stephenson still in as he had passed his third attempt to take the jump at the next bar, 18-10¾ (5.76).

Stephenson missed and was out, and Rademeyer missed and passed, the bar going to 19-¾ (5.81). Bradford cleared on his first jump to take the lead, while Guttormsen missed, then passed his remaining jumps at the height. Stephenson and Rademeyer both missed their remaining efforts.

At 19-2¾ (5.86) Guttormsen cleared on first attempt, while Bradford missed twice and passed. The bar went to 19-4¾ (5.91), with Bradford clearing the PR height in an all-or-nothing bid to win. But when Guttormsen immediately followed with a first-jump clearance, the Princetonian was back in the lead. Guttormsen passed at 19-6½ (5.96) and watched Bradford miss three times. Guttormsen, with the win in his pocket, asked for the bar to be set at the magic 6 meters (19-8¼), which he cleared on his second jump before retiring.

Guttormsen had won the Euro Champs in Istanbul just 5 days earlier. Having flown to New Mexico from 10 time…