Browsing: Athletics

When Edwards arrived at Gothenburg’s Ullevi Stadium, no-one had ever jumped beyond 18 metres in ‘legal’ wind conditions.

Within the first two rounds of the competition, he had managed it twice.

He landed beyond the measuring board with his opening-round jump of 18.16m and then added another 13cm to the record around 20 minutes later in what is one of British athletics’ greatest performances.

He was the event’s form athlete that year, arriving in Sweden as the world record holder after jumping 17.98 to beat American Willie Banks’ previous mark by one centimetre and had also recorded the longest jump in history of a wind-assisted 18.43m.

He has always described himself as a sprinter, rather than a jumper, likening his contact with the ground through the hop-step-jump phases to a pebble skimming the water and at 71kg was also lighter than many other athletes.

He had changed his technique that season, adopting a double arm action – rather than an alternate arm movement – that he said made him “so well balanced” through all of his phases.

But nevertheless he was far from confident, admitting that he bought sunglasses at Gothenburg airport to hide his eyes when he was warming up so his competitors “wouldn’t see the fear” he had.

What his rivals saw was very different.

“In our training sessions, we studied Edwards videos day in, day out,” Jerome Romain, who took the bronze medal in Gothenburg, said. “It was just remarkable the things that he did.”

Silver medallist Brian Wellman believes Edward set the record because “he was the most efficient triple jumper out there”.

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‘RUN – The Athlete Refugee Team Story’, shares the incredible and inspirational story of the Athlete Refugee Team (ART), from its formal beginnings in early 2017 through the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic last year that halted, albeit temporarily, their seemingly impossible journey towards the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Three years in the making and released in 2020, the feature-length documentary (93 minutes) by director Richard Bullock begins with an introduction to some of the refugee athletes selected to compete on the inaugural Refugee Olympic Team in Rio, who train at the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation training camp in Ngong, Kenya.

We meet Loroupe, a pioneer in women’s distance running renowned now as much for her community development and peace-making efforts as for her achievements in sport, who approached World Athletics and the IOC with the refugee team concept and who helped hand-pick those athletes from trials competitions at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northeast Kenya.

And, we follow the athletes’ journey after that ground-breaking and symbolic debut on the world stage at the Rio Games when the programme shifted its focus to longer term goals as it expands to include refugees based in other areas.

But like the best documentaries, the film is at its finest when it shares personal moments that illustrate the challenges and the difficult choices the athletes face, both in and out of training and competition and when showing the importance the athletes place on representing the faceless millions around the world that are currently displaced in unprecendented numbers.

In its annual Global Trends report issued earlier this week, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reported that nearly 82.4 million people were living displaced from their homes at the end of 2020, a further four per cent increase on top of the already record-high 79.5 million at the end of 2019. Last year marked the ninth straight year of uninterrupted rise in forced displacement worldwide and witnessed a doubling of the number of displaced persons in the world since 2011, when the total was just under 40 million.

When the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games will finally be staged later this summer, the team’s participation – seven were ultimately chosen to compete in athletics – will once again became a source of inspiration for those tens of millions while their stories will resonate with millions more.

“We try to pass a message through sport for the people to recognise that the refugee, that whatever any human being can do, that refugees can also do,” says Anjelina Nadai Lohalith, who will make her second Olympic appearance in Tokyo. “Once they are given the chance.”

Bob Ramsak for World Athletics

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It would be understandable for anyone to be fazed by the presence of an athlete like the ground-breaking Eliud Kipchoge in their event. But for Swiss marathon record-holder Tadesse Abraham, competing against the world record-holder and Olympic gold medal-winning Kenyan icon is a modest challenge compared to what he faced as a young refugee.

On World Refugee Day (20), Abraham is a beacon for millions of refugees, having rebuilt his life in an unfamiliar land and eventually represented his new homeland with distinction on the biggest stage of all, the Olympic Games. In Abraham’s case, it meant the talented runner making his way to Switzerland after competing for Eritrea at the 2004 World Cross Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium.

He arrived in a country where he knew little of the culture, spoke none of the native Swiss-German language and knew no-one. Not only was it an alien environment in which he had to integrate, but it meant the likely sacrifice of a promising championship athletics career.

“It was very strange. It was a challenge for me,” he says, looking back on his arrival. “Comparing with some of the others (refugees), it was easier because I could talk English. But in Switzerland, they don’t reply to you in English. They believe you should try their language and try to integrate, which I see now is very important.

“It was quite difficult for me. You arrive as a twenty-something, you want to do everything, you are young, you are alone, you have no possibilities, so as a refugee it was really tough. The language, the culture, the food – everything is different. But the mountains – we have the same in Eritrea.”

Tadesse Abraham competes in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games marathon (© Getty Images)

It also meant putting his running career on pause as he was stationed in the refugee camp.

“When you come to Switzerland as a refugee you have to know the place where you are. You can’t run where you don’t know the place. I was in the camp and I was not allowed out, and for three or four months, I didn’t run,” he says.

Despite that, he was an immediate success on his return to competition later that year, winning his first race in his adopted home – the half marathon at the 2004 Winterthur Marathon – in 1:07:34.

For the next few years, he could only race domestically. Then in 2007, after he was given a permit to stay and a travel document, he ventured into the international road racing scene, competing in races in Bologna, Bogota and Gongju. In 2009, there was also an eye-catching 1:01:25 in a high-quality Berlin Half Marathon. He also began to make his mark in the marathon, winning in Zurich in 2:10:09 in 2009 and following it up with a solid seventh-place finish at the 2010 Berlin Marathon in 2:09:24.

His career was given further impetus when he was awarded Swiss citizenship in 2014 and it meant his return to championship racing after a 10-year gap. Competing in front of home crowds at the European Championships in Zurich, he placed ninth in the men’s marathon in 2:15:05.

But the best was yet to come. Two years on, in Olympic year, he broke the Swiss national record for the marathon, with 2:06:40 placing him fourth at the Seoul Marathon. He went on to win the European half marathon title in Amsterdam in 1:02:03, capped with team gold for Switzerland. Then at the Rio Olympics, he was a highly respectable seventh in the marathon in 2:11:42. The winner that day was of course Kipchoge and the Kenyan remains an inspiration for Abraham as he looks towards the Tokyo Games this summer.

“I’m feeling motivated. Kipchoge is not young and me too – I am not young,” he says. “The age is, he assured me – and I believe too – just a number when you prepare very well and concentrate. No human is limited. We don’t have a limit and when you are concentrated, it is true.

“He achieved everything, so why not? We do the same. Kipchoge is a big example for us, a very disciplined athlete. I would love to be like him. It gives me more motivation to prepare and to train every day. In the morning I wake up and think about Kipchoge and train much like him.”

Despite the restrictions from the pandemic, Abraham is naturally optimistic over Tokyo and has prepared diligently at altitude in his home country.

“It’s quite a crazy time now because of the pandemic,” he says. “It’s part of life what has happened. My preparation is very good, I am on my way, I am excited, it will be my second Olympics. It makes sense to prepare in Switzerland. We have St Moritz in Switzerland at 18,000ft. I have been there and there are a lot of athletes from Africa, a lot of Kenyans who use it too. It is a very nice location for training. I train every year there.”

Tadesse Abraham wins the European half marathon title in Amsterdam (© Getty Images)

But whilst he looks towards the giddy heights of an Olympic Games, Abraham is an athlete who remains grounded and mindful of his refugee roots. He is closely involved as an ambassador with the Human Safety Net, a charity that supports vulnerable people including refugees. This consists of supporting the refugee running team.

“I participate on the coaching party,” he explains. “They have their own coach, but as long as I have time, I share my ideas with them and sometimes I coach them running.” During the pandemic, this has also extended to delivering coaching courses via video conferences too.

And, just as he was lent a hand as a refugee, he extends the same hand to other refugees.

“I help them to be more like me or better than me in the direction of integration. To help the refugee means there is humanity,” says the runner whose passion for his sport is matched by his compassion for his fellow man.

Abraham is also currently serving as an ambassador for the inaugural World Athletics Run Smarter City Challenge, a friendly competition between the running communities in the Swiss cities of Geneva and Lausanne to raise awareness about the importance or air quality on running and exercise.

“Having had the chance as a runner to train and compete in different parts of this world, I have learned to appreciate the importance of clean air,” he says. “Living now in Switzerland, I also know how lucky I am to have such good air quality here. In other parts of the world where I trained or raced, I sometimes encountered heavy air pollution which was harming my health. This is not only a concern for runners, but for all the people facing bad air. I would like to take action and lead by example.”

Chris Broadbent for World Athletics

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In the lead-up to World Refugee Day on 20 June, members of the Refugee Olympic Team will be sharing their…

World champions Karsten Warholm, Yulimar Rojas, Tajay Gayle, Anzhelika Sidorova and Kelsey-Lee Barber are among the first stars confirmed for…

In the lead-up to World Refugee Day on 20 June, members of the Refugee Olympic Team will be sharing their…

In the lead-up to World Refugee Day on 20 June, members of the Refugee Olympic Team will be sharing their stories in a series of features as they prepare for the Games in Tokyo. The series continues with sprinter Dorian Keletela.

With the exception of the football World Cup, there’s simply no stage in sport that can rival the Olympic Games – its global reach, its captive audience, the knowledge participants have that on that platform, for those few weeks, the whole world is watching.

As such, it’s an ideal place to not only entertain, but also inspire – a medium through which to send a message. For Dorian Keletela, a 22-year-old member of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team, his performance in the men’s 100m in Tokyo will be about far more than his time or finishing position.

“The world needs inspiration, a good message,” he says. “The message I want to send is that refugee people are a strong people and they can do everything a normal person can do.”

A native of Congo, Keletela faced tragedy early in life. In his teens he lost both of his parents, who were victims of political persecution, and he moved in with his aunt, who cared for him thereafter.

“In Congo the important thing is to respect your Mum, and I respected her like a Mum,” he says.

In 2016 the two fled to Portugal where he spent more than a year in refugee centres, a difficult situation but one he had to endure to escape the risk at home.

“It was very complicated to live there,” he says of his native country. “But (leaving) was not really a choice.”

Keletela first took up athletics at the age of 15 while still living in Congo and, the following year, he ran 10.68 for 100m. After settling in Portugal and joining a local club, he lowered his best to 10.48 in 2017.

He arrived unable to speak Portuguese but these days he’s fluent and for all the difficulties he endured, he has since built a much better life, with plans to become a coach in the future.

“In Portugal I have more liberty,” he says. “This is very fundamental because people look for liberty in life. Congo doesn’t have liberty.”

In March this year, Keletela became the first member of the World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team to compete at the European Indoor Championships, powering down the track in the light blue singlet and finishing eighth in his 60m heat in 6.91.

Dorian Keletela in action at the European Indoor Championships

“This experience was very good for me because it was a championship of Europe,” he says. “I was thankful to all those who helped make it happen.”

A member of Sporting Lisbon, Keletela has worn their green and white stripes with pride at many domestic events over the past couple of years. Keletela joined the Athlete Refugee Team programme in 2019 but injury sidelined him from the World Championships that year. Despite the disruption to training caused by the pandemic last year, he lowered his 100m best to 10.46 (0.7m/s) in Lisbon and clocked 10.48 in the heats of the national championships.

His 2021 season is already shaping up well, with a 10.55 100m clocking in May and a wind-aided 10.51 (+2.2m/s) in June. He typically trains six days a week for up to three or four hours a day, and last week his hard work was rewarded when he was among 29 athletes from 11 countries named on the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. They will compete across 12 sports at the Tokyo Games.

“My objective is to make a mark,” he says. “I hope to do a personal best.”

But his goal also runs deeper than that.

Keletela knows that as countries become more multi-cultural, there can often be a growing swell of anti-immigration sentiment, but he wants people to know what life is really like for refugees, how the similarities to them far outweigh the differences.

“People sometimes have the impression refugees are bad but they are normal people,” he says. “Refugees are very motivated to invest in their life, to recreate their life. They are normal people that just had to move from their country that’s in conflict to go to another.”

Over time, he has seen the positives of being a refugee.

“For me, to be a refugee is an opportunity to be here to run,” he says. “If I wasn’t a refugee, I wouldn’t be able to run at the Olympics. I can be an inspiration for other refugees and people who have a similar experience to me because life is not always easy for everyone.”

Making the Games is something Keletela “never dreamed of” before arriving in Portugal, but ever since hearing about the refugee team a vision formed: him settling into the blocks alongside the fastest men in the world on the grandest stage in sport.

“When I saw this group I said, ‘maybe one day I will be part of this’,” he says. “And now this dream is my reality.”

Cathal Dennehy for World Athletics

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In the lead-up to World Refugee Day on 20 June, members of the Refugee Olympic Team will be sharing their stories in a series of features as they prepare for the Games in Tokyo. The series begins with 1500m runner Anjelina Nadai Lohalith.

Last Tuesday’s confirmation that Anjelina Nadai Lohalith had been picked for the Refugee Olympic Team for a second successive Games was cause for celebration – and the 28-year-old 1500m runner duly marked the occasion at her Ngong training camp in Kenya, with much “music and dancing”.

But any day now an even more significant moment awaits as she prepares to reunite with the family she left behind when, aged nine, she escaped from her war-ravaged village in South Sudan and made her way to the vast Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya – where her father and mother have recently arrived themselves.

It will be the first time she has seen her parents since the day she and her aunt boarded a United Nations truck that had been bringing food into an area traumatically affected by a civil war that eventually ended in 2005, three years after she had reached her new home.

Recalling in a Zoom call from her training centre how the war had come to her village, Lohalith said: “Soldiers came in the night. I didn’t understand what was happening, I just heard the shooting.

“We ran to the next village and we slept in the bush at nights. We wanted to go back to our village to get food and all the things we had left behind. It was really an emergency, and we had almost nothing with us.

“But we were told we could not go back because the soldiers were occupying our village and around the village there were what they called ‘weapons underground’, which were landmines. It was not safe.

“The UN bus came with food, and that was how I was able to get out with my aunt. I thought my family would be coming after me. But they didn’t come.”

Lohalith’s “dearest wish”

Lohalith has maintained since making the Refugee Olympic Team for the Rio 2016 Games as one of five track athletes that her “dream” was to one day help her parents.

Asked how she felt about the prospect of meeting them after so long, she paused for a few moments before saying: “It is my dearest wish.”

She added: “It makes me so happy that my parents are now in the camp. Soon we will have a welcome party!”

Already, however, her mother and father have met their grandson for the first time – Lohalith’s four-year-old son Jayden Luis Monutore.

Her parents were preceded to Kakuma by other relatives, including another of her aunts and a cousin, and they have helped to look after Jayden – already a natural runner according to his proud mum – while she has been training to make the Rio 2016 team.

“My parents don’t know about my running,” she said. “They only know about my schooling. I think it will be hard for them to understand about the Olympics. They don’t know anything about it.”

Anjelina Nadai Lohalith trains at the Refugee Athletes Centre in Ngong (© AFP / Getty Images)

Lohalith has spoken in the past of how Tegla Loroupe, Kenya’s former world marathon record-holder and three-time world half marathon winner, came to the Kakuma Camp as part of the work of her Peace Foundation and organised trial races in 2015 to identify those who might be able to run at the Olympics.

At that time Lohalith knew nothing of international athletics but she had been, like her son, a natural runner for as long as she could remember.

“Wherever I went I would run,” she recalled. “When I went to fetch something for my mother I always ran, because I didn’t want to be beaten by her!

“I just loved running for no reason, but I did not know anything about racing until Tegla came to the camp. I didn’t know who she was – I only found out about her medals and her world record later.”

In Rio, Lohalith ran 4:47.38 in her opening 1500m heat. Two years later she reduced that time to 4:33.54 at the World Athletics Championships in London.

She wanted to continue her international career by appearing at the Doha 2019 World Championships. “I wanted to go to Doha but it was soon after maternity leave and I just didn’t make it,” she said. “It was not my time to go. But now I AM going back to the Olympics!

“I was not sure I would be in the team. I was nervous. I am so happy to be going to Tokyo.”

Another chance

Part of the reason for her uncertainty was the difficulties the pandemic had thrown up to her training regime, which faltered as the Olympics were postponed by a year.

“We were training very hard for the Olympics. In 2020 we were in very good shape, very confident. I felt I was in shape to reach the semifinals,” she said.

“Then it was very difficult, we had to go back to the camp and try to train there, but you could not train in big groups. And it was very hot – we used to train at five in the morning, but we missed the facilities of the training camp.

“Tegla was very encouraging, she gave us schedules while we were back in the camp. She said: ‘It will be difficult, but you have to try and stay with it. It will be hard, but you can do it.’”

In Lohalith’s case, Loroupe was right.

“I can say I feels so great,” the soon-to-be double Olympian said. “I am really honoured but it was not something I ever expected. I feel so happy to be given another chance, and I just want to improve on my best time.

“People all over the world wish to get this chance, but that is something that not all of us can do. It’s very hard. That is why they were using some kind of criteria to select athletes.

“Before Rio in the camp we were told that maybe one person can be lucky to go. But from my team all six of us were lucky to be selected. Now the number is halved. There is a higher competition now and that is why they did so many trials.”

Anjelina Nadai Lohalith in action at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (© AFP / Getty Images)

Since arriving in Kenya, Lohalith has learned fluent English. Asked how she had managed to attain this language, she responded: “I just read. I like reading novels – love novels, inspiring books. One of my favourite authors is Nelson Mandela.”

Speaking recently, Rwanda’s International Olympic Committee member Felicite Rwemarika described how she had been forced to flee her home when members of the Tutsi tribe were being massacred in 1959, and added that, during her subsequent travel in Uganda and Burundi, her family had been treated with suspicion and denied access to vital services, having to change their name at one point.

How had Lohalith’s experience of being a refugee in a foreign land compared?

“I have not been through that kind of an issue,” she said. “Not that much. We are in camp most of the time. We and Kenyans, most of the time we are the same with our facial appearance.

“It only happens sometimes if you meet with some few people, but only with a few.

“You cannot expect them to be 100 per cent about refugees in another country. Not everybody can see what you are going through. They can’t understand it. Some will be negative. When you introduce yourself as a refugee, they get a look on their face. We just have to understand, we don’t have any choice.

“We hope others see we are just normal people like them.”

The power of sport

As well as visiting Rio and London to compete, Lohalith has also been to Uganda and to Canada, where she attended the One Young World Summit in Ottawa, a global forum for youth leaders to discuss global issues.

“I enjoy travelling a lot,” she said. “It is part of my passion – travelling to see the world. When I was young, I always told myself that one day you will be travelling the world in an airplane. But I never had an idea on what I was going to do or how it could happen.

“But now my dream has happened. It is sport that has helped me to travel.

“Through running I was able to know more people, people who have been able to compete in international races. I feel so great when I make so many friends from other countries.

“When I compete, I can meet people and make friends and we stay in contact. I am always happy and honoured for it, to be building that kind of a relationship with people.

“People do not just go to compete, they make friends in different countries. It is something very great for me. That is a big reason why sport is so important – it can also bring people together.”

For now, however, Lohalith is turning her eyes once more to the Olympic arena.

Asked when she would leave for Japan, she laughed suddenly and exclaimed: “I don’t care when I go! I am going!”

Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics

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China’s Zheng Ninali and Jiri Sykora of the Czech Republic came out on top at the Arona Combined Events meeting, the Spanish leg of the World Athletics Challenge – Combined Events, held this weekend in the Canary Islands.

Zheng, who previously represented Canada and competed under the name Nina Schultz, added more than 200 points to her PB to win the heptathlon with 6358. Sykora, meanwhile, added one point to the PB he set back in 2016 to win the decathlon with 8122.

Britain’s Holly Mills got off to a strong start in the heptathlon, winning the 100m hurdles in 13.22, just 0.01 outside her recent career best set in Lana. Zheng was also just shy of her recent PB, clocking 13.39 for second overall.

Mills strengthened her lead with a PB of 1.85m in the high jump. The 21-year-old was only bettered in that discipline by Spain’s Claudia Conte, who cleared a PB of 1.88m. Zheng, however, lost out on a few potential points with a clearance of 1.76m.

Switzerland’s 2017 European U23 champion Caroline Agnou was the top performer in the shot put, throwing 14.92m, and was closely followed by France’s two-time European champion Antoinette Nana Djimou (14.86m).

Mills managed 13.26m, enough to hold on to her lead, but Zheng produced a huge PB of 13.86m to climb up to second place overall. Belgium’s European indoor silver medallist Noor Vidts remained in third place overall after throwing 13.31m.

Local star Maria Vicente bookended her day with PBs. Having clocked 13.51 in the 100m hurdles, she ended day one with a 200m PB of 23.33 (0.8m/s), catapulting the 20-year-old into third place overall in Arona, as well as into ninth place on the Spanish all-time list for 200m.

Mills and Zheng, who clocked 24.36 and 24.51 respectively for 200m, held on to first and second place overall with scores of 3823 and 3711.

Since taking bronze in the long jump at the 2019 European U20 Championships, Mills has had to switch her take-off leg for the event. So while her 6.08m leap in Arona was some way off her lifetime best, it was one of her top performances to date using her new approach.

Vicente, however, jumped 6.35m and closed the gap on the Briton to just 46 points. Zheng (6.23m) and Vidts (6.34m) performed solidly to maintain their position in the top four.

The positions changed again after the javelin. Despite a PB of 35.77m, Mills finally surrendered her lead to Zheng, who hurled a lifetime best of 48.26m. Vicente threw 46.75m, moving her into second overall, one place ahead of Mills and just 10 points behind Zheng. Vidts, meanwhile, managed a PB of 38.80m and remained in fourth, just 17 points shy of Mills.

In a thrilling 800m, Zheng ran a massive lifetime best of 2:14.49 to secure the overall victory with 6358. Vicente, who clocked 2:19.82 in the final event, held on to second place with 6274, just 30 points shy of her own national record. Thanks to a PB of 2:09.34 in the 800m, Vidts took third place with a lifetime best of 6240. Mills, who clocked 2:12.40, was relegated to fourth but rewarded with a PB of 6211. Fifth-place finisher Conte also achieved a PB (6029).

“I’m delighted with my performance today,” said the 22-year-old Zheng. “Beyond the win, I’ve managed to be consistent in all the events; the last couple of years had been very difficult for me as I suffered injuries, but this season I’ve come back strongly. I’m especially proud of myself as this year I’ve trained on my own.

“Today I fell 62 points short of the Olympic standard,” added the Commonwealth silver medallist. “I’m not sure if I’ll try it again before the deadline but anyway I’m very happy with my season.”

Sykora makes late charge to win decathlon

The men’s event had been billed as a clash between European indoor silver and bronze medallists Jorge Ureña of Spain and Pawel Wiesiolek of Poland. Unfortunately, neither of them managed to finish the competition, but Sykora came through to lead a Czech 1-2 finish from compatriot Adam Sebastian Helcelet.

France’s Ruben Gado and Spain’s Pablo Trescoli were the fastest in the 100m, both timed at 10.83. Wiesiolek then took the overall lead after equalling his lifetime best of 7.63m in the long jump. 20-year-old Italian Dario Dester managed 7.61m, adding one centimetre to his career best and moving to second overall, 19 points behind the Pole.

A 7.54m leap kept Ureña in third place, but the Spaniard picked up an injury in the long jump and he was forced to drop out after the next event, the shot put.

With a 15.99m heave, Venezuela’s Georni Jaramillo moved into fourth overall after the shot put. Helcelet was the only other athlete to surpass 15 metres (15.32m), elevating him to third while Wiesiolek managed to hold on to the lead after throwing 14.04m.

Wiesiolek, Dester and Helcelet all cleared 1.98m in the high jump, an event topped by Spain’s Pablo Gámez (2.01m). But Dester closed in on Wiesiolek’s lead after clocking 48.36 in the 400m, ending the first day with a score of 4221 to the Pole’s 4239. Helcelet was in third, 95 points behind the Italian, while Sykora was a little further back in fifth (4067).

Dester finally overtook Wiesiolek in the overall standings after the 110m hurdles, clocking 14.46. Jaramillo was the top performer in that event, running 14.12.

The discus provided the biggest turning point of the weekend. Wiesiolek’s competition ended after recording three fouls, while Dester surrendered his lead after throwing 38.21m. 2014 world U20 champion Sykora, meanwhile, threw a PB of 48.86m to jump from fifth to first overall.

Gado then moved back into contention after clearing 5.30m in the pole vault, putting him second overall in between Sykora (4.80m) and Helcelet (4.60m).

Jiri Sykora in action in the decathlon javelin in Arona

The Czech duo dominated the javelin with Helcelet prevailing over Sykora, 67.29m to 66.91m. Norway’s Martin Roe moved into the top three overall after throwing 64.66m.

Sykora finished 10th in the final event, but his 4:51.42 clocking for 1500m was enough to secure victory with 8122. Helcelet ran 4:47.59, giving him a final score of 8058 for second place, while a 4:26.76 1500m win from Gado moved the French decathlete back into a podium position (8038). Roe was fourth with 8016.

The meeting also featured U20 and U18 competitions. In the U20 men’s contest, Belgium’s world U20 indoor record-holder Jente Hauttekeete exceeded the 8000-point barrier for the first time. He set PBs in the opening events, running 10.88 in the 100m and leaping 7.45m in the long jump. He had a scare in the shot put, but threw 14.19m after two fouls to remain on course. He excelled in the high jump, clearing 2.10m, and clocked a 50.08 400m PB to finish the first day.

On the second day the Belgian ran 14.38 in the 110m hurdles, threw 44.89m in the discus, cleared 4.50m in the pole vault and threw the javelin 52.92m before rounding out his weekend with a 4:37.84 clocking in the 1500m.

The 19-year-old ended with a national U20 record of 8034, putting him 12th on the world U20 all-time list.

Emeterio Valiente for World Athletics

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European indoor silver medallist Fanny Roos extended her own Swedish record to 19.33m at the Folksam Grand Prix – a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting – in Sollentuna on Sunday (13).

The 26-year-old dominated the competition, taking an early lead with her opening effort of 18.99m. After fouls in the next two rounds, she improved to 19.04m in round four and backed it up with 18.94m in round five. She saved her best for the final round, though, hurling her shot out to 19.33m.

It added three centimetres to the national record she set in Vaxjo at the end of May and it places her fifth on this year’s world list.

European champion Paulina Guba of Poland was second with a season’s best of 17.92m.

World champion Daniel Stahl notched up another victory in the discus. All four of his valid throws – 65.95m, 67.25m, 66.52m and 68.03m – were farther than anyone else managed. Domestic rival Simon Pettersson was second with 64.42m.

African U20 champion Vincent Keter was a convincing winner of the men’s 1500m. The Kenyan sprinted away from the field to cross the line first in a PB of 3:35.21 with Ireland’s Andrew Coscoran taking the runner-up spot in a PB of 3:35.66.

Keter’s compatriot Mary Moraa, the 2017 world U18 400m silver medallist, enjoyed a decisive victory in the women’s 800m. The 20-year-old, who won in Turku at the start of the week, improved her PB to 1:59.25 with Benin’s Noelie Yarigo finishing second in 2:00.57.

Britain’s Ama Pipi was also in PB form, chopping half a second off her best to win the 400m in 51.53.

Marija Vukovic and Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova were among the winners at the Filothei Women Gala – a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting – on Monday (14).

Katerina Stefanidi was also among the athletes in attendance but according to the Greek athletics federation the Olympic champion decided not to compete due to the windy conditions. That women’s pole vault competition was won by Switzerland’s Andrina Hodel thanks to a second-time clearance of 4.35m.

Montenegro’s Vukovic won the high jump, achieving 1.93m on her second attempt before having three tries at 1.96m, which would have been an Olympic qualifying mark and added a centimetre to her own national record. Mironchyk-Ivanova’s 6.79m (-0.7m/s) led the long jump results, as one of her four jumps over 6.70m during the competition, with Serbia’s Milica Gardasevic leaping 6.48m (-0.7m/s) in the final round to place second.

Rafalia Spanoudaki-Chatziriga went quickest in the three 100m races, clocking 11.59 (-0.9m/s).

Debjani clocks 3:33.06 in Geneva

Ismael Debjani improved his Belgian 1500m record to achieve an Olympic qualifying time, while Rasmus Magi was also among the athletes to tune up ahead of Tokyo at AtletiCAGeneve, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting, on Saturday (12).

Debjani ensured that the competition ended on a high as he broke the meeting record in the last event of the day, clocking a dominant 3:33.06 in the first of the two men’s 1500m finals to take 0.64 off his previous best from 2017. He won by more than five seconds, with Czech Republic’s Jan Fris the runner-up in 3:38.88.

The men’s 400m hurdles was much closer, with 2014 European silver medallist Magi challenged by Germany’s Constantin Preis. Magi went close to his Estonian record of 48.40 set at the Rio Olympics in 2016, clocking 48.49 to win the first of the three finals ahead of Preis with a 48.60 PB, his first performance under 49 seconds and an Olympic qualifying mark. France’s Ludvy Vaillant was third in 49.22. Viktoriya Tkachuk of Ukraine won the women’s 400m hurdles in a PB of 54.60.

France’s world indoor 60m hurdles bronze medallist Aurel Manga kept his cool as barriers were falling around him and won the 110m hurdles final in 13.32 (1.1m/s) to match the Olympic qualifying mark. He had earlier won his heat in 13.46. Italy’s Hassane Fofana was second in the final, equalling his PB with 13.44.

France’s Laura Valette was another athlete to match her PB as she clocked 12.87 (1.5m/s) to win the 100m hurdles final ahead of Belgium’s Anne Zagre with 12.90.

A strong finish saw world 200m bronze medallist Mujinga Kambundji secure a 100m win and Olympic qualifying time on home soil as she clocked 11.07 (1.2m/s) from her compatriots Salome Kora (11.12) and Ajla Del Ponte (11.18).

Mouhamadou Fall of France was quickest in the men’s 100m finals, running 10.26 into a -1.7m/s headwind, and he completed a sprint double with a 200m win in 20.37 (0.1m/s) ahead of South Africa’s Clarence Munyai (20.49).

Dutch sprinters Lieke Klaver and Liemarvin Bonevacia triumphed in the two 400m ‘A’ finals, with Klaver pipping Portugal’s Catia Azevedo, the pair clocking an equal PB of 50.98 and 51.02 respectively, and Bonevacia running 45.01 in a strong race.

A close women’s 800m saw Deborah Rodriguez take more than a second off her Uruguayan record to win in 2:00.20 ahead of Lore Hoffmann (2:00.29) and Angelika Sarna (2:00.34).

The men’s high jump was also competitive and saw Bulgaria’s Tihomir Ivanov win on countback as both he and 2007 world high jump champion Donald Thomas of the Bahamas cleared 2.28m. Britain’s Emily Borthwick added one centimetre to the meeting record and also her PB in clearing 1.93m to win the women’s high jump as her compatriot Morgan Lake achieved 1.90m.

Cuba’s Denia Caballero also improved a meeting record with a 60.25m throw to win the discus.

Jess Whittington and Jon Mulkeen for World Athletics

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