Olympic pole vaulter Kate Dennison broke the British record at a meeting in Prague on Monday with an impressive jump of 4.51 meters.

The Loughborough athlete's jump beat previous holder Janine Whitlock's 2005 record of 4.47m, and her distance is well within the World Championships A qualifying standards.

Dennison's recent form pre-empted a good performance after she set a new British indoor record of 4.46m in February.

Dennison said: "I warmed up well and was feeling really good. I knew I was in good shape in training and I would have loved to have taken the bar higher but it was a low-key meeting and the crowd had almost disappeared, so I decided not to because you need crowd support when you're going for records.

"There's a street meeting on Wednesday so I'm going to stick around in Prague for that and hopefully jump higher, then focus on the European Team Championships.

"Obviously my main focus is on the World Championships, It's great to get the standard out of the way early so I can focus on jumping higher.

"I'll need 4.50m-4.60m to make the final so if I can jump like that before I go that would be great."