European indoor 400m silver medalist Lieke Claver opened the season with a world-leading time of 50.54 seconds at the Czech Indoor Gala held in Ostrava on Tuesday (30th).
The Dutch sprinter's talent is sometimes overshadowed by that of his training partner, multiple world and European gold medalist Femke Boll.
But with the latest World Athletics Indoor Tour gold event, Claver has put himself in the spotlight and has a major year ahead, including the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, the Rome 2024 European Athletics Championships and the Paris Olympics. We have built a solid guidepost for the future.
“I'm very happy. I actually thought it would be very easy,” she smiled afterwards. Claver simply accelerated from the field and picked up the pace, leaving European U23 silver medalist Henriette Jaeger of Norway a distant second place with a national record of 51.57 points.
Czech Republic's Lada Vondrova, who was part of her country's mixed relay team that won bronze at the 2023 World Athletics Championships, placed third with 51.57 points.
Tent Glue opens Olympic year with victory
Olympic, world and European champion Miltiadis Tentoglou has not been able to live up to his full potential. However, the Greek athlete has his sights set on further challenging for major medals this year, and there was still plenty of room for him to win the men's long jump with a jump of 8.09 meters in the third round. The next best was Radek Jushka (Czech Republic), a former European indoor silver medalist, with a height of 8.03m.
European 100m hurdles champion Pia Szukrzyszkowska of Poland won the high-quality women's 60m hurdles with a meet record score of 7.82. Two-time European indoor gold medalist Nadine Visser of the Netherlands followed with a time of 7.93 seconds, followed by Ireland's Sarah Rabin in third place with a time of 7.93 seconds.
Explosive Swoboda wins again
The women's 60m was decided by Gunn. Three-time European indoor medalist and world leader Ewa Swoboda was explosive from the start, setting her meet record time of 7.07 seconds.
Meanwhile, local prospect Karolina Mashasova, who is joint holder of the Czech record, stumbled badly from her block and finished eighth with a score of 7.56. Luxembourg's Patrizia van der Veken, who has been improving her form, took second place with a time of 7.17 seconds.
In the men's 60m, Joshua Hartman ended his unbeaten run in 2024, finishing 0.04 seconds behind Japan's Yoshihide Kiryu, who won in 6.53 seconds.
The German scored a personal best score of 6.54 points in his heat, ahead of European indoor champion Samuele Ceccarelli (Italy) in seventh place with 6.74 points and European 100m bronze medalist Jeremiah As (GBR) with 6.64 points. He felt satisfied that he was better than 5th place.
Stanek ranks second in his home country
Czech record holder and European bronze medalist Tomáš Stanik was cheered by the home crowd.
He placed second in the men's shot put with 21.33 meters, splitting the best times of NACAC champion Roger Steen (USA) and former indoor and outdoor world champion Tom Walsh (New Zealand) with 21.38 meters and 21.17 meters respectively.
The men's 400m race saw some close competition between European athletes. In the first race, Olympic 400m hurdles semi-finalist and local hero Wit Muller defeated Switzerland's Lionel Spitz at the bell and maintained his advantage until the end, winning by 0.31 points with a score of 46.26. .
There was also a close battle between European U23 bronze medalists Attila Molnar (Hungary) and Matej Kulusek, with the former narrowly beating Czech's 46.45 seconds on the finishing straight with a time of 46.28 seconds.
Nader takes world lead, Torgelsen sets European indoor U20 record
Last year's world finalist Isaac Nader of Portugal achieved the best performance in his class in the men's 1500 meters. He evaded his pacemaker, pulled away with three laps to go and, undeterred, won in 3:34.23, a world lead and a new Portuguese indoor record, moving him into 10th place on the European indoor all-time list.
Sweden's Samuel Pilström broke away from the pack and took second place with a new national record time of 3 minutes 35.47 seconds, followed by France's Romain Mornet in third place with a time of 3 minutes 37.22 seconds. There was also the Austrian indoor record set by Rafael Palic, who finished fourth in 3:37.36, breaking a 39-year-old national record.
European U20 cross country silver medalist Sophia Torgelsen from Denmark also had an outstanding performance, finishing 6th in the mile with a European indoor U20 record time of 4:29.31, breaking Ciara McGeian's 2011 record of 4:38. He broke the record of 81 seconds.
Chris Broadbent at the European Athletics Championships
