His leg brushed the bar, and he worried on the way down. Turned out, he needn’t have. There wasn’t even a wobble on the way to an American record in the pole vault.

“It was time to celebrate,” Brad Walker said.

For everyone.

Overall, the Prefontaine Classic wasn’t quite as clean as Walker’s amazing vault of 19 feet, 9¾ inches. Recall pistols fired a bit too often — drawing groans from the record crowd and in one case, disqualifying a world record-holder. World record tries in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters fell short. Some of the hometown favorites did, too.