Annik Kälin from Graubünden is leading the heptathlon standings after the long jump at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham. She built her position on Saturday with a strong second attempt in the long jump, clearing 8.1 meters. Kälin’s performance left her ahead of the rest of the field by a narrow margin. She now holds just one point over Dutch athlete Sofie Dokter, who is in second place with 4,954 points. Ireland’s Kate O’Connor sits in third with 4,949 points. Kälin has already broken her own Swiss record twice this season and is now aiming for the 7,000-point mark. She has proven that she is in peak condition for this competition.
Spain’s Paul McGrath and Maria Perez won gold medals in the half-marathon race walk event, according to bluewin.ch. The weather was nearly ideal for the race walk, with temperatures around fifteen degrees Celsius. Maria Perez took control from the start and maintained her lead throughout the race. She began to pull away at the ten-kilometer point and continued to increase her lead. Perez reached the 20-kilometer mark in one hour, twenty-five minutes, and thirty seconds, tying her own Spanish record. She finished the race in one hour, thirty minutes, and six seconds. This time beat the required standard for a world record by twenty-four seconds. Italy’s Alexandrina Mihai took silver with a time of one hour, thirty-one minutes, and four seconds. Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Olyanovska earned bronze with a time of one hour, thirty-one minutes, and seven seconds.
Italy also dominated the marathon race walk event, winning gold in both men’s and women’s races. Sofia Fiorini, a twenty-one-year-old from Italy, won the women’s race in three hours, fifteen minutes, and eleven seconds. Her time was well under the world record target of three hours, seventeen minutes. She set a historic new record for this event. Fiorini was faster than the previous best time in this discipline. Earlier, her compatriot Massimo Stano claimed gold in the men’s marathon race walk. He set a European record with a time of two hours, fifty-six minutes, and forty-nine seconds. This victory adds to his titles from the 2020 Olympics and the 2022 World Championships.
The race walking events at this European Championships were held over half-marathon and marathon distances for the first time. Athletes will no longer be allowed to compete in two events, as was done at previous championships.
IMAGE: 2018 Hypo-Meeting Götzis. Photo: filip bossuyt from Kortrijk, Belgium / Wikimedia, taken 2018-05-26, CC BY 2.0