Poleaxed! Vaulter loses his winning smile

Harry Coppell, the Team GB pole vaulter, was robbed of his winning podium smile yesterday as some of his teeth were knocked out in practice.

The 25-year-old was seeking emergency dental work after the bar fell on his face after a vault. Coppell, from Merseyside, had attempted to catch it, but it slipped through his hands as he lay flat, shattering one tooth and chipping a second. He wrote that he had “got some good vaulting done” before “the bar then fell on my face and messed up all my teeth”.