Olympic gold medallist Steven Hooker easily defended his Commonwealth Games pole vault title last night at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Hooker, who came into the event as an unbackable favourite in the 13-man field, only required a jump of 5.60 metres to win the gold medal.

Hooker, who leapt to fame on one of the closing nights in Beijing two years ago, entered the competition at 5.50 metres, after the majority of the field had already bowed out of contention. Despite being anticipated to try and break the Commonwealth Games record of 5.80 metres, Hooker pulled out of the jump after only a few steps of his run up.

Hooker can now turn his attention back to beating pole vault legend Sergei Bubka’s world record of 6.14 metres. Hooker’s best remains at 6.06, which ranks him as the second best pole vaulter of all time.

In other track and field action on Monday, Sally Pearson put behind her the heartbreak of being stripped of her Commonwealth 100m title, by comfortably winning the final of the 100m hurdles.

Pearson had controversially had her gold medal taken off her just before the medal presentation earlier in the Games, but bounced back from the disappointment to win the 100m hurdles in a time of 12.67 seconds.

Tuesday promises to be an exciting day of action on the track as the final of the women’s and men’s 4x100m relays are contested, with former AIS athlete Patrick Johnson leading the way for the men’s team.