LONDON 2012: Lewis warms up for Olympic with new British pole vault record

By Sportsbeat staff

GREAT Britain's Steve Lewis erased the 14-year old national pole vault record in the perfect preparation for the London 2012 Olympics.

SUCCESS: Steve Lewis broke the British pole vault record with a 5.82m leap in Poland, rewriting a 14-year old record (Getty Images)

Lewis has been promising a big clearance for some time and duly delivered at the 58th Memorial Janusza Kusocińskiego in Szcecin.

He removed Nick Buckfield from the record books by clearing 5.82 metres, an improvement of ten centimetres on his previous outdoor personal best.

In the process he also beat close friend and reigning Olympic champion Steve Hooker and moved to fifth in the world rankings, with France's Renaud Lavillenie, who has cleared 5.97m, the red-hot favourite for gold in London.

Lewis is making his second Olympic appearance and is determined to erase the painful memories of Beijing, where he failed to record a height in his qualifying group.

He now heads to the Algarve where he'll join up with the British team for a two-week training camp.

© Sportsbeat 2012