Two Israeli athletics records fell on the same day at Givat Ram Stadium in Jerusalem on Monday, as sprinter Noam Mamo and pole vaulter Yarden Mantel both bettered marks they had set only weeks earlier during the national championships.
Mamo won the men's 400m in 46.58 seconds, shaving two-tenths off the Israeli record of 46.78 seconds he had set just four days earlier at a meet in Liège, Belgium. World Athletics lists that Liège clocking, from July 15, as his official personal best entering the championships, making Monday's run his second national record inside a week.
The time continues a rapid rise for Mamo, who has cut more than a second off the Israeli 400m mark over the past four years, moving from 47.63 seconds in 2022 to 47.57 in 2023 and 46.82 last year before this month's back-to-back improvements. He also holds Israel's national record in the 800m.
In the pole vault, Mantel cleared 4.16 meters to add a centimeter to the Israeli U20 and U23 record of 4.15 meters she had set in January. The height kept her progression intact after a season in which she has repeatedly pushed her own national mark higher.
"I'm happy things came together for me, but I feel I haven't yet shown all my abilities," Mantel said after her winning vault, signaling she expects to add to the record again before the season is out.
Monday's session was part of Israel's 90th national athletics championships, a fixture on the Israel Athletics Association calendar that regularly serves as the proving ground where the country's junior and senior record books are rewritten.
With both records now in the books, attention turns to whether Mamo and Mantel can carry the form into international competition later this year, after a championship day that underlined the depth of young talent currently coming through Israeli athletics.
