Bubka Pushes Indoor Vault Mark to 19-5

For the third time in three weeks a world indoor best was set in the pole vault as Sergei Bubka of the Soviet Union cleared 19 feet 5 inches at the Soviet National Indoor Championships Saturday.

Bubka’s effort, which marked the sixth time this winter that the world best has been topped, broke the 19-4 3/4 mark set last Saturday by American Joe Dial at Columbia, Mo.

A week earlier, Billy Olson vaulted a then world-best 19-3 3/4 at Albuquerque, N.M.

Bubka, who set the world outdoor record of 19-8 last July in Paris, topped Dial’s record in his first try at 19-5, the Soviet news agency Tass reported.

Bubka and Olson have battled all winter for supremacy in the indoor vault. Olson started the assault when he cleared 19-2 3/4 at a December meet in Canada.

On Jan. 15, Bubka, 22, vaulted 19-3 in Osaka, Japan. Olson came back three days later to lift the record to 19-3 1/2 in Los Angeles.

In other action at Moscow Saturday, Robert Emmiyan set a European indoor best in the long jump with a leap of 27-4 1/2, breaking the longest standing European indoor mark. The old mark of 27-0 was set in 1966 by Olympic gold medalist Igor Ter-Ovanesyan.

Emmiyan, who celebrates his 21st birthday next week, first broke the old mark with a leap of 27-3, then beat that with the best indoor jump in the world so far this winter. Emmiyan becomes the third best indoor longer jumper behind Americans Carl Lewis and Larry Myricks. Lewis has the indoor best of 28-10 and Myricks has jumped 27-8. Both marks came at Madison Square Garden in 1984.

Pavel Yakovlev, the men’s indoor champion over 1,500 meters, took the men’s 3,000 meters in 7:53.40.

Natalya Bochina, silver medalist at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, took the 200 meters in 23.10, and Alexander Yevgenyev won the men’s 200 in 20.91.