Five world bests at Stockholm indoor meet

Austria's Stephanie Graf ran the fastest women's indoor 800 metres this year to beat Olympic champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique at a meeting in Stockhom on Thursday which saw four other world best results for the season.

Graf, 27, who took silver behind three-times world indoor champion Mutola at the Sydney Olympics last year, won in 1:57.67, beating Mutola by 38 hundredths of a second.

"I aim to break the world indoor record," Graf said confidently.

The world record of 1:56.40 was set by Christine Wachtel of the former East Germany in Vienna in 1988.

Mutola had promised to break the record in Stockholm but never looked strong enough to edge past Graf, who led the race from start to finish.

"It was great to get revenge," said Graf, who won the 800 metres at the European indoor championships last year.

Noah Ngeny of Kenya, another Olympic gold medallist who had pledged to run an indoor world record in Stockholm also failed to live up to his pre-race boast, finishing second behind Portugal's Rui Silva over the mile.

Silva took command on the final lap and cruised home to a comfortable victory in 3:52.18 -- another world best -- 1.13 ahead of Ngeny.

LOOKED TIRED

"I saw that Ngeny looked tired and I took my chance," the 24-year-old Silva said.

The men's and women's high jumps produced Swedish winners to the delight of the 10,352-strong audience -- a European record at indoor athletics.

Staffan Strand won the men's event in 2.34 metres, improving the season's world best by one centimetre.

Compatriot Stefan Holm, who stands only 1.81 metres tall and is one of the word's shortest elite high jumpers, came second also on 2.34 metres.

"We pumped each other up to jump higher today. We are in great shape and we are the ones the others must try to beat in Lisbon," Strand said, referring to the world indoor championships which run from March 7-9.

Kajsa Bergqvist of Sweden won the women's high jump in impressive style, clearing 1.99 metres, a world best this year, at her second attempt.

"It was great to beat the world's best jumpers here at home. It was particularly nice to beat (Inga) Babakova (of Ukraine) this close to the world championships," said Bergqvist, the 24-year-old reigning European indoors champion who won Olympic bronze in Sydney.

Babakova came second with 1.97 metres.

The fifth world best was set by Romanian Violeta Szekely, who won the women's 1,500 metres in 4:03.61.

The Olympic silver medallist and European indoors champion last year, Szekely aggressively pushed past Portugal's 1997 outdoors world champion Carla Sacramento at the start of the home stretch to win the sprint finish.

Britain's Olympic gold medallist Jonathan Edwards won the men's triple-jump with 17.11 metres.