Damian Warner attained personal and season bests and sits second ahead of Friday’s final event in the two-day heptathlon at the world indoor track and field championships.
The London, Ont., native began the day in Birmingham, U.K., with a season-best 6.74-second clocking to win his 60-metre heat and match his PB from the Athletics Ontario youth senior championships on Feb. 21, 2010.
Warner, 28, followed with a leap of 7.39 metres in the long jump before finishing the morning session with a PB of 14.90m in shot put. His previous best was 13.86, set at indoor worlds four years ago in Sopot, Poland.
Warner carries 2,669 points into the high jump at 2:45 p.m. ET, which will be live streamed at CBCSports.ca. Five hours of coverage begins at 12:50 p.m.
With 2,714 points, Kevin Mayer of France holds a 45-point lead over Warner. A year ago, the 26-year-old reigning world decathlon champion earned his first major international gold medal, shattering a 13-year record with 6,479 points to win the European indoor heptathlon title. Mayer won decathlon silver six months earlier at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
World bronze medallist Kai Kazmirek of Germany sits third with 2,572 points. Last month, he no-heighted at 2.00m in the high jump, meaning he didn’t clear any bar during the competition, at the German Indoor Championships.
Warner, who captured decathlon bronze in Brazil, could still threaten or break Michael Smith’s 25-year-old Canadian heptathlon mark of 6,279 points after scoring a PB 6,129 at the 2014 worlds.
Warner has competed sparingly this year indoors after a stomach flu hampered his chances to medal at last summer’s world championships in London, England, where Warner placed fifth.
Emmanuel in 60m semifinals
Toronto sprinter Crystal Emmanuel advanced to the women’s 60-metre semifinals at 1:50 p.m. ET, narrowly missing her indoor personal best of 7.23 seconds with a 7.26 clocking in Friday morning’s heat. The final is scheduled for 4:38 p.m.
“With a good executed race, I can run faster than I’ve ever ran,” Emmanuel said in an email to CBC Sports earlier this week. “The time should be faster than 7.28, for sure.”
Emmanuel, 26, stopped the clock in 7.28 at the Grand Prix d’Athletisme in Montreal on Feb. 10 and ran 7.30 earlier this month at an Athletics Ontario indoor series meet in Toronto (Lane 4 in video below).
She has had her indoor training interrupted this season by various injuries. At the end of last year’s outdoor season, during which Emmanuel obliterated the 34-year-old national 200 record, repeated as Canadian champion in the 100 and 200 and placed seventh at worlds, she suffered a right hamstring injury that caused an imbalance with her right glutes, quadriceps muscles and hip.
Last month, right quad tightness forced Emmanuel to withdraw from the 60 at the 53rd Knights of Columbus Indoor Games in Saskatoon after she clocked 6.30 to win the 50.
Jones, Balkwill bow out in women’s 400 heats
Canadians Travia Jones of Regina and Kelsey Balkwill of Essex, Ont., made their indoor worlds debut in the women’s 400 but failed to qualify for Friday afternoon’s semifinals.
The 22-year-old Jones, who competed at last summer’s worlds, finished fourth in her heat in 53.51 seconds, less than one second off her personal best of 52.57, set at the Fastrack National Invite on Feb. 9 in Staten Island, N.Y.
Balkwill, 25, also crossed the line fourth in her heat in 53.29. She has set four indoor PBs in 2018 in the 400 (52.64), 60 (7.59), 200 (24.01) and 600 (1:30.62).
Entire men’s field DQ’d in 400m heat
All five runners in a 400-metre heat were disqualified from their race Friday.
Abdalelah Haroun, a Qatari who won bronze at last year’s world championships, was first to leave after a false start.
Bralon Taplin of Grenada, who ran the fastest time this year, then finished first in the heat but officials later disqualified him and Steven Gayle of Jamaica, Austris Karpinskis of Austria and Alonzo Russell of the Bahamas for running out of their lanes.
The IAAF says it’s the first time in history that every runner in a world championship race has been disqualified.
