Lavillenie fails again in world record bid

France's pole-vault star Renaud Lavillenie again narrowly failed in his bid to improve his own world record on Saturday, but insists he is getting closer.
The 28-year-old Olympic champion failed three times to clear 6.17m at an indoor meeting in Berlin, but won the competition with a leap of 6.02m -- a week after a similar experience at a meet in Nevers, central France.
His performance was the best in the world this season and the tenth time the 28-year-old had cleared the symbolic six-metre barrier.
"I'm not far away, maybe it will work in the next few weeks," he told the crowd at Berlin's O2 World having set the world record of 6.16m in Donetsk, Ukraine, in February last year.
In the other events, Cuba's Orlando Ortega ran a world season's best time of 7.51secs for the 60m hurdles, beating 2008 Olympic 110m champion Dayron Robles and London 2012 winner Aries Merritt of the USA.
Veteran sprinter Kim Collins proved he is still a force as the 38-year-old from St Kitts and Nevis ran 7.50secs, missing out on a world season's best by just two hundredths of a second.
Source: AFP